TVNZ goes with Sky. See the Satfacts page and news section. Although no real technical details have been released yet as to how it will all work.We will have just have to wait until the technical details come out.

From my Emails & ICQ

From Luke Mckimmie

Craig, I responded to the request from Mediasat, and received a reply today
(see below). Maybe someone out there may have relevant info that Mark
Lobwein could use.

Luke Mckimmie.

Thanks for you message Luke,

Yes we are trying to get as many FTA CH up on our platform as we can.
I have been trying a few Greek Channels but to date have had no luck.
If you know of any contacts to go through this might help speed up getting
new channels up and running.

Craigs comment, Let them know what you want to see. I never thought about Worldnet that would be a good one to have! What would be good is a channel thats out of reach of the average cband system. How about a russian channel!

From Chris Pickstock

ABC on B1
2 pm SA Time

These channels currently load from B1 at 12670 H, 12690 H and 12707 H sr 14300.

SKY Television is pleased to announce that TV ONE and TV2 will join SKY’s satellite platform on 1st December 01.
The additional channels will give SKY subscribers a full compliment of all national Free-to-Air channels. SKY already carries TV3, TV4, Prime and Trackside.

/or the first time, viewers will be able to watch all the national Free-to-Air channels in crystal clear digital quality picture and sound no matter where they live in New Zealand,” said John Fellet, SKY’s Chief Executive Officer.

?I am also pleased that now all the national broadcasters will be able to work together to develop interactive television applications,” said Fellet.

TV ONE and TV2 will be on buttons 1 and 2 respectively on the SKY digital remote control. SKY will take this opportunity of reconfiguring its digital channel line-up. This will be announced in the December SkyWatch.

Broadcasting Minister Marian Hobbs says she’s pleased TVNZ and Sky Television have reached agreement for TV ONE and TV2 to be available on the Sky digital platform.

?I’ve been concerned that TVNZ risked losing viewers because Sky customers couldn’t access One and Two easily via the hand-held remote,” she said.

?In the longer term however my concern is still to ensure all New Zealanders have access to the choice and opportunities that digital can offer.

"This requires setting a direction that supports open access and open standards for one set top box for consumers.

"These matters are being investigated and considered at the moment.”

ENDS

MEDIA RELEASE

Wednesday 31 October

From http://www.tvnz.co.nz/links/media/mr2001311001.htm

TV ONE AND TV2 TO BE AVAILABLE ON SKY DIGITAL

TVNZ Chairman Dr Ross Armstrong today announced an agreement between TVNZ and Sky Television that will see TV ONE and TV2 available on the Sky Digital platform from 1 December 2001.

The agreement provides TVNZ with a low cost digital expansion option, while TV ONE and TV2, with 73 % of the total New Zealand television audience, will be available to Sky digital subscribers through the satellite platform.

TVNZ Chief Executive Rick Ellis said that the agreement will ensure that TV ONE and TV2 are available to New Zealand television viewers in a digital environment.

"In addition to providing TVNZ with carriage of TV ONE and TV2 on the Sky digital platform, the agreement gives TVNZ the option to introduce additional channels, plus interactive extensions for TV ONE and TV2 in the future.

"An important aspect of the agreement will see TV ONE and TV2 occupy positions 1 and 2 on the Sky Electronic Programme Guide and the Sky remote.

"TVNZ and Sky have also agreed to co-operate on the future development of interactive services," said Mr Ellis.

As part of the agreement, Sky Television will continue to make its set top boxes available for rental to those viewers only requiring free to air services.

For further information please contact Glen Sowry, TVNZ General Manager Public Affairs on 09-916 7565 or 021-461 775

TVNZ channels will be broadcast on Sky

From http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,992793a13,FF.html

TVNZ today announced TV1 and TV2 would be broadcast on the Sky digital service from December 1.

TVNZ chairman Ross Armstrong said the stock exchange was informed this morning.

"TVNZ and Sky Television have reached agreement that we'll see TV1 and TV2 available on the Sky digital service from December 1, in just over a month's time," Dr Armstrong said.

"The agreement provides for free carriage of (channels) one and two and the agreement also provides a low-cost digital expansion option for Television New Zealand."

He made the announcement at Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee, saying the board of TVNZ was "delighted" by the initiative.

"We believe it not only adds value for Television New Zealand. We believe it reaches out to embrace the 250,000-odd subscribers to Sky Digital."

The agreement also helped many, many thousands of New Zealanders in a difficult geographical location who had not been able to receive satisfactory reception, he said.

The Government previously axed TVNZ's plans for going digital and Opposition MPs today criticised the announcement as falling far short of TVNZ's plans.

ACT MP Rodney Hide said the agreement made TVNZ simply a "content provider" for Sky.

National broadcasting spokeswoman Katherine Rich said despite the gloss TVNZ was putting on the announcement, it was a result of the deteriorating financial position of the State-owned company.

"You really had no choice and that decision was inevitable," she said.

However, TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis said TVNZ had been in discussions with Sky for three years and the agreement had no bearing on the company's current financial state.

New Zealanders expected to be able to receive TV1 and TV2 on "whatever device, whatever platform they choose" so the state broadcaster had had in place a strategy for implementing a digital future, he said.

TVNZ plans to launch a digital television service by October earlier fell apart after TelstraSaturn pulled the plug on a proposed joint venture.

Mr Ellis said he expected today's announcement to have a positive impact on TVNZ's value because "digital homes" were being included in ratings and if TVNZ was not broadcasting digitally that would ultimately affect ratings and revenues.

"Being on that platform, I've no doubt will enhance the value of the company," he told the committee.

TVNZ going digital - via Sky

From nzoom.com

TVNZ is launching a digital service on December 1, piggy-backing on rival Sky Television's platform.

The widely anticipated agreement between the public and private broadcasters means TV viewers will not have to contemplate having two set-top boxes to pick up the rivals’ separate signals.

Sky has agreed to continue to rent its set top boxes to households that don’t want to pay for channels, but want to take advantage of the better reception and picture quality digital signals provide on free to air channels.

TVNZ Chairman Ross Armstrong confirmed the agreement to the parliamentary finance and select committee on Wednesday.

Industry sources say the deal was struck after Prime Minister Helen Clark and Broadcasting Minister Marian Hobbs left no doubt in the broadcasters’ minds the government’s preference for one set-top box.

Hobbs made it plain back in August that she would ensure all New Zealanders had access to the choice and opportunities that digital offers and that required “setting a direction” that supported open access and open standards for one set-top box.

The sources say the government was prepared to legislate to get what it wanted.

But just whether the agreement is a win:win, or TVNZ has been able to leverage its political advantage to get what it had been pressing for from Sky if it was forced to abandon its own digital dream, has yet to come out in the wash.

TVNZ Chief Executive Rick Ellis says the agreement between TVNZ and Sky ensures TV One and TV2 will be available in a digital environment. But he says it also gives TVNZ the option to introduce additional channels, plus interactive extensions for TV ONE and TV2 in the future.

*n important aspect of the agreement will see TV ONE and TV2 occupy positions 1 and 2 on the Sky Electronic Programme Guide and the Sky remote,” Ellis says.

The move to the Sky platform finally buries TVNZ’s ambition to create its own digital platform.

Its original plan, estimated to cost $217 million over several years, was put on hold by the government in February last year. That saw the state owned broadcaster first write off $7 million in March and another $6 million in September, recovering just $1.6 million in capital costs from what it had already spent on the project.

TVNZ had planned to use the digital technology to develop a combined pay TV, internet and e-mail service alongside its free to air channels.

Despite the government lid, TVNZ bounced back in November last year with a partnership deal with Australian-backed Telstra Saturn.

When Telstra Saturn largely pulled out of that deal in August this year, industry sources said an agreement between TVNZ and Sky seemed inevitable.

ESPN Star sports launches channel in Korea on 1 November

From http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k1/oct/oct93.htm

ESPN STAR Sports will launch its first joint venture led dedicated sports cable channel in Korea on November 1.
Known as MBC-ESPN Sports, the channel will be an entirely localised sports service that delivers live and exclusive coverage of major sports events, launched in association with Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. This includes seven live and exclusive games per week of Major League Baseball (MLB) and two live and exclusive games per week each from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the Korean Football League.

MBC-ESPN will also air coverage of the Korean Open Golf Tournament, Korean Intercontinental Football and the ATP Tour. This is in addition to popular ESS programs such as the English Premier League and UEFA Champions' League. Transmitted entirely in Korean, MBC-ESPN's localized programming includes on-air presentation, commentary, graphics and dedicated promos. ESS will provide sports programming on MBC-ESPN while MBC provides the on-the-ground production facilities needed to customize and re-transmit the locally versioned feed from Seoul.

ESS officials say, "We began by launching dedicated feeds to key Asian markets, followed by versioning our programming to the local language. We've now taken it a step further by working with the strongest local partners in Korea who have the resources and expertise to help us continue providing compelling sports programming to our viewers, expertly localised." MBC-ESPN is the ninth feed of ESS and the fifth feed of ESPN in Asia.

Craigs comment expect the feed will be in Stars mux on Asiasat 3 like the others are

30/10/01

The Athlon pc's not going to arrive until Friday, in the meantime I decided to upgrade from Mcafee Virsu Scan Deluxe 5.21 to version 6. Big mistake! the install trashed the 5.21 version when removing it to install version 6. When I rebooted the Version 6 was there but did absolutely nothing! So I thought I would remove it and put the older version back. Wrong! it would no longer let me put the old 5.21 version back! it also toasted outlook express and the control panel! So I ended up installing IE6, outlook express 6, Nortons antivirus 2002 and updated Blackice firewall to 2.9 version. All seems to be fine now.

If it ain't broke don't mess with it!

Tommorow the NBA season is starts, You can watch Michael Jordans return to the NBA on the big Dish.

Nba Basketball New York, NY USA Washington Wizards @ New York Knicks Live on Star Sports Asiasat 3. check your local tv guide for the times. Star Sports will be showing 28 games. Feeds will probably be via Pas2 Adhocs or Pas 8. Let me know if you see the feeds somewhere. Also let me know if you see NBA matches on any other FTA services.

The site update may be late tommorow or else no update, The chatroom will go ahead as normal though. Only so many hours in a day and tommorow the 2nd Athlon 1.4ghz pc system will be arriving. I will need to spend quite a while getting that set up for my brother. Things like downloading the 20 megs of patches that have come out so far for Xp. I can't be online and doing the site update at the same time. As downloading the updates will need to use my net account on the other machine at the same time. I don't have internet connection sharing setup.

Seen in the newsgroups.

Hi All

Can anyone please tell me if you are viewing the programing on Mediasat
and if you like the programing????

Your chance to have your say. I suggest you don't mention anything to do with feeds though

From my Emails & ICQ

From Zapara

ABC SE is running on Foxtel 12376 H transponder Optus B3

Craigs Comment any more details?

From Tony Drexal, "FTA Satellite Services"

Posted on newsgroups and also sent to Apha, Mega, and Antenna:

Congratulations ALPHA SKAI for becoming the number one Greek station in
Australia.

Since Antenna Pacific and Mega Cosmos encrypted their signals four weeks
ago, thousands of Greek families in Australia and the Pacific have been
watching ALPHA SKAI, because these families have privately owned satellite
systems and can not or will not pay the high price being asked for by
pay-tv.

Well done Alpha, and may the people who advertise on your channel also
benefit by reaching a far greater audience then would be possible by pay-tv.

Craigs comment, They won by default though!

An interesting email from "Siam Global"

DEAR MR SUTTON / APSATTV,

The line beween piracy and legal viewing of satellite programmes is often very thin. If a Thai resident subscribes paying the full subscription through a Malaysian friend and views Astro, the Malysian DTH service, is he pirate ? Certainly copyright of the program provider is infringed and the Malaysian friend is in breach of a civil contract but not many people would call this piracy. The UK for example does not criminalise such cross border subscribing to sevices in other counriies. But what if the Thai resident concerned is an hotelier...does it then suddenly become piracy ? This is exactly what is happening more and more here in Bangkok. UBC charges very high per room rates should a hotel wish to make CNN (for example ) available in guest rooms. More and more Thai hotels are now getting Astro installed with the aim of avoiding the astronomical UBC per room rates. It is not illegal in Thailand for Thais to suscribe to or watch ASTRO. No hacking of any nature is involved. So is this piracy or just clever use of a legal loophole ? Worth giving a thought. A useful analogy is where one buys a car. Is it illegal to rent it out to hundreds of people and allow them full use of the vehicle. ?

From http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=157265&thesection=technology&thesubsection=general

New Zealanders could soon be perched in front of their televisions taking part in quiz shows or simply browsing the web if a United States company can find an investment partner here.

Paul Vachon, senior vice-president of the technology firm Liberate, said it wanted to invest millions of US dollars in New Zealand setting up interactive television.

The company has already set up interactive television in Britain and the US, and Mr Vachon has spent the past month meeting potential partners in Australia and New Zealand.

He confirmed he had talked to Sky Network Television and all "obvious" communication and broadcast companies.

If a deal was struck, interactive TV could be available in New Zealand by the middle of next year, said Mr Vachon.

The concept involves viewers using their television sets like a computer, accessing the internet and e-mail.

A viewer would be able to participate in game shows. Banking, education and instant shopping would be available.

Subscribers would need a keyboard, a telephone line and a "black box" containing the technology. The box would be leased, similar to the Sky decoder system.

Mr Vachon declined to reveal the cost of the service, but said that as with any new technology the first variations would be more expensive until mass use evolved.

Eventually, he said, interactive television would be very cheap.

Subscribers would be able to choose from packages of services.

"People will be able to watch what they want, when they want it.

"As you get more and more channels of content, you get more ways of sifting through that content to be able to watch what you want."

Mr Vachon said trials in Britain revealed that people who had the technology did not want to give it up.

High internet use by New Zealanders should help sell the product here, he said.

Liberate, which has a market capitalisation of $US3 billion ($7.56 billion), is owned by several high-profile technology companies, including Oracle, Netscape, America On Line and Sony.

The company already has an agreement with Ice Interactive to run a pilot scheme in New South Wales.

Six Mideast Countries Plan Satellite Channel

From Satnewsasia.com

Six Muslim states in the Persian Gulf region are expected to launch a new English-language satellite TV channel that would convince Americans that not all Muslims support terrorism.

Information ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) met in Manama to discuss a media strategy aimed at dispelling anti-Arab sentiment in the West.

GCC is a political and economic alliance that includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

GCC proposed setting up an English-speaking satellite channel in its information drive. It would also urge press outlets in their respective countries to rectify the image of Islam that has been damaged by some Western media organizations.

GCC assistant secretary general Hamad Ali al-Sulayti had earlier disapproved of the way U.S. and other Western media were portraying the Middle East as a hotbed of terrorism.

The one-day GCC meeting emphasized the growing attention being paid to the propaganda battle to defend the image of Islam worldwide as a religion of peace.

?We are putting our efforts together as ministers to reach all media in the Western world to explain our position that all Muslims and all Arabs are against terrorism,” Bahraini Information Minister Nabil al-Hamer said after chairing a closed-door meeting of GCC information ministers.

During the past three-weeks, the Qatar-based satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera TV has been the Muslim world’s main source of news about America’s military campaign in Afghanistan.

Washington has openly criticized Al-Jazeera of being a propaganda tool of Usama bin Laden. Al-Jazeera, however, is awaiting Washington’s go ahead for an interview with President George Bush.

PSLV-C3 lifted off from SHAR Center in Sriharikota island off India’s southeast coast to orbit the Technology Experiment Satellite (TES) of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Germany’s BIRD (Bispectral and Infrared Remote Detection) and Belgium’s PROBA (Project for On Board Autonomy).

This is the second PSLV launch of three satellites simultaneously. The first was in May 1999 when ISRO’s IRS-P4, the German DLR and Korean KITSAT-3 satellites were successfully orbited.

TES and BIRD satellites are in the 568 km sun-synchronous orbits while PROBA is in elliptical orbit.

TES is an Indian remote sensing satellite with a ground resolution of one meter. It is considered India’s first military satellite. ISRO, however, said TES is a significant acceleration in the Indian remote sensing program and will be for civilian use consistent with India’s security concerns.

ISRO Chairman Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan said that TES has a camera with one meter resolution that can identify buildings, structures and moving vehicles. Existing Indian remote sensing satellites have a ground resolution of 5.6 meters.

ISRO plans to launch a remote sensing satellite, CARTOSAT-1, with a resolution of 2.5 meters in 2002 or 2003, to be followed by CARTOSAT-2 with a resolution of one meter.

Analysts said the early launch of TES was intended to remedy what India perceived to be security lapses in the Indian-controlled Kargil region of Jammu and Kashmir where bloody fighting with Pakistan occurred in 1999. The two hostile neighbors have disputed Kashmir for over 50 years.

The failure of Indian remote sensing satellites to detect Pakistani infiltrators or their camps was pinpointed as one reason for the extended fighting in Kargil. An Indian committee set-up to review the Kargil conflict said the Pakistani intrusions could have been detected earlier if India had half-meter resolution satellite imagery.

India is presently buying one meter ground resolution images from the IKONOS satellite owned by the American company, Space Imaging.

TES’ launch was also designed to demonstrate critical technologies for future PSLV missions.

The cryogenic engine uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to launch 2.5-ton satellites to an orbit of up to 22,000 miles. It could give India the capability to build ICBMs by modifying the launch vehicle and replacing the satellite with a warhead. India conducted nuclear tests in May 1998.

In 1992, India's bid to develop its own cryogenic engines was delayed significantly by Russia’s signing the Missile Technology Control Regime that bans the transfer of missile technology. The US objected to Russia giving India the technology because of its potential use in nuclear missiles.

N. Vedachalam, director of Liquid Propulsion Systems Center, a wing of the Indian Space Research Organization, said ISRO was ready with the engine.

?We will test it within two or three months. But commissioning it in our launch vehicles could take considerable time,” he said.

DD 1 to telecast news bulletin every hour

From http://www.economictimes.com/281001/28tech02.htm

DOORDARSHAN will telecast news bulletin every hour on its DD1 channel from January 2002, minister for information and broadcasting Sushma Swaraj said on Saturday.

The ministry was planning more programmes based on news and current affairs. The slot for news and current affairs based programmes would be raised to 30 per cent from the current 10 per cent, Swaraj told a meet the press programme here.

Eight hours would be dedicated for programmes meant for children and another eight hours for cultural ones, she said.

She said the decision to discontinue DD News was independently taken by Prasar Bharti and had some justification.

On global competition, Swaraj said India is being developed as uplinking hub for SAARC countries and would generate a huge revenue though exact generation of revenue has not been calculated.

According industry status to the entertainment sector would make available to them the instutional finance, the minister said adding IDBI had earmarked Rs 100 crore this year and Rs 61 crore had already been disbursed.

She expressed hope that turnover of entertainment sector was presently Rs 10,000 crore which would go upto Rs 30,000 crore in future.

The government will act as facilitator for the entertainment sector, Swaraj said adding her ministry was also exploring some good locations for shooting of feature films that may save precious foreign exchange. (PTI)

The Gulf Co-operation Council is studying a proposal to establish an
English-language channel to counter efforts to blacken the image of the Arabs
in the West. The proposal was submitted to GCC information ministers during
their summit in Manama on October 24. The proposal would establish a satellite
channel in English that would seek to battle Arab stereotypes in the West in
the wake of the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

CHINA

FOREIGN BROADCASTERS TO ENTER TV MARKET

More foreign-backed television broadcasters are poised to launch services in
China. Liu Changle, chairman and chief executive of Phoenix Satellite
Television, said he was told by the mainland's broadcasting authority that two
broadcasters - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and AOL Time Warner - would soon be
permitted to broadcast to television viewers in Guangdong province. The new
approvals would come within weeks, said Mr Liu, following a meeting on October
18 with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT)
director-general, Xu Guangchun. News Corp plans to reach Chinese viewers
through an as-yet-unnamed Putonghua channel run by its Asia operating arm, Star
Group. AOL Time Warner's plan involves expanding the distribution of the
existing China Entertainment Television channel in which it has a stake.
Conditions of News Corp and AOL Time Warner's licences to broadcast to the
mainland are that they will be required to provide reciprocal distribution
rights to China's state-run flagship network, China Central Television, to
broadcast. The development follows an announcement last week that Phoenix TV
has been formally allowed by Beijing to broadcast to households in the Pearl
River Delta, making it the first foreign TV operator to gain legal broadcasting
rights in China. At present, the 22 approved foreign TV channels, such as CNN,
CNBC and Phoenix's Chinese and movie channels, can broadcast only to a select
group such as hotels and residential areas for foreigners.

INDONESIA

ABS-CBN INTERESTED IN INDOSIAR

Leading Filipino broadcaster ABS-CBN has conformed it is talking to top rated
Indonesian commercial terrestrial Indosiar. ABS-CBN has not said whether it is
one of the bidders for a 49% stake in Indosiar, but is thought to want
management control of the company should it get involved. As a foreign
broadcaster ABS-CBN would have to bid for Indosiar through a local concern.
Other bidders for the broadcaster are thought to include Hong Kong outfit TVB
and Australian Seven Network. The highest bidder will be revealed in December.

THE PHILLIPINES

STAR TV PULLS CHANNELS FROM CABLE

The STAR TV Group, which delivers Star Sports, Star Movies and ESPN to cable
television subscribers of merged SKYCable and Home Cable, on October 19 cut off
its services to local operator SKY Vision Corp. while contract renewal
negotiations were going on. "SKY and Home owe us a total of $3.1 million,
equivalent to P160 million. Their contract with Star expired in April this
year. Since then we have been working on a month-to-month basis," David Ilagan,
Star vice-president for distribution said. SKY and Home Cable have not been
paying their monthly dues with Star since May this year. Meanwhile, SKYCable
has added several new channels including Channel News Asia (CNA), Solar TV and
AXN Action TV.

SOUTH KOREA

SKYLIFE TO LAUNCH INTERACTIVE DIGITAL TV

Korea's first fully interactive digital satellite television system is to be
launched by Skylife later this year. Skylife will become the sole provider of
satellite broadcasting services in Korea. Skylife will offer Korean consumers
almost 150 channels of digital video and music programming. The company expects
to be on air by the end of 2001, with a plan to grow to approximately 3 million
subscribers by 2005. Skylife's main investors comprise public telecommunication
and broadcasting companies including Korea Telecom, KBS, MBC, and KT Freetel.

HD INTERACTIVE LAUNCHES

The first high-definition (HD) interactive digital television service started
on October 26 from the commercial broadcaster Seoul Broadcasting System.
Following SBS’ launch, state controlled Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) and
Munwha Broadcasting Corp. (MBS) are also scheduled to relay their first digital
television signal on November 5 and December 2, respectively, ending year- long
trial periods. The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) said it
would require broadcasters to expand their services across the country by 2005.
Broadcasters are likely to return their analog channels to the government by
2010. Moreover, Korea Digital Broadcasting (KDB), a consortium for digital
satellite broadcasting, is slated to start operations in December. KDB has
filed business license applications for 76 satellite television and 60 radio
channels. KDB is an industry-leading consortium of over 140 companies mainly
led by state-run Korea Telecom and Korea Broadcasting System. KDB leased a
total of 10 satellite transponders on one of the three Mugungwha III Satellites
earlier this year from the government.

28/10/01

Taking a break today back Monday

27/10/01

Indy Cars on Optus B1 at the moment, nice 384kbit audio, brrrm brmm vrooom vroom in car cam looks nice if you sit very close to the screen feels like you are really driving. Over on B3 12363 V seems to be very very low power. Netball Final tonight, feed via B3? and B1? Or you can watch via ABC if you don't mind missing the last 2 minutes.

Just what the Chinese Government thinks American audiences will make of CCTV-9, China's English-language news channel, is anybody's guess.

That is, if anybody watches the often turgid and always politically sanitised version of world events, to be broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV) on cable soon in New York, Los Angeles and Houston.

This is news as propaganda, although at the moment the same accusation could be levelled at some US networks.

Far more interesting will be how the people of southern China respond to the first freely available foreign television about to hit the Chinese mainland. A deal signed this week in Beijing by AOL Time Warner will see its China Entertainment Television channel made available to cable viewers within weeks.

China's television audience is enormous. CCTV broadcasts to an estimated 1billion viewers. Capturing just a slice of that - especially the rich urban market - is an attractive proposition.

Last week Hong Kong-listed Phoenix Satellite Television - 38 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch's Star Group - announced it had been granted the right to broadcast via two cable channels in Guangdong province in southern China.

In fact, broadcasts from free-to-air stations in Hong Kong have been seeping across the border for years.

Analysts see entry to the southern market as a test run. How the Government deals with the politically sensitive material that pops up in dramas remains to be seen. The South China Morning Post reported this week that an episode of the US political drama West Wing being broadcast from Hong Kong earlier this year disappeared from Chinese screens when it hit a sensitive theme.

CCTV-9 will be carried on select Time Warner Cable systems - the first time a CCTV network will be carried on any US cable system on a 24-hours basis.

"The reciprocal nature of the agreement means that American audiences will gain a greater understanding of Chinese culture as well as an appreciation for the immense intellect, artistry and creativity of the Chinese people," said Gerald Levin, AOL Time Warner chief executive and a man who has clearly never watched much Chinese television.

Reciprocal content deals between China and Western broadcasters already exist, and 22 approved foreign TV channels are available in selected hotels and residential areas for foreigners.

But the AOL Time Warner and Murdoch deals represent a quantum leap by the Chinese, with the entertainment channels being broadcast to an estimated 42million households without direct government supervision.

Foreign television - like the Internet - will have an impact on China's internal political dynamic. And like the Internet, it will be difficult to control.

While the diet at first will most likely be light entertainment and B-grade movies, another light bulb - however dim - has been switched on.

OpenTV reaches 20 million deployments

From http://www.cabletoday.com/ct/1004097892.html

Based on reports received to date, interactive TV company OpenTV said it has passed 20 million set-top box middleware deployments, a doubling of deployments since announcing it reached 10 million set-top box deployments in October 2000.

OpenTV said the three-month period ending Sept. 30 marked the fourth consecutive quarter in which the company saw an excess of two million deployments of its middleware offerings.

EchoStar's DISH Network has deployed more than two million set-top boxes with OpenTV's EN2 middleware, the company said. In the satellite TV business, the company has developed PVR solutions for EchoStar's 501 and BSkyB's Sky-Plus set-top boxes. In addition, the company is helping with ITV services for DirecTV Latin America.

For the third quarter, OpenTV said its net loss was $118.5 million, while revenues were $25.1 million.

Increased Profitability in the Core Platform Line of Business -- Announced Four Additional Network Operators, Including Three Cable Operators -- Launched Device Mosaic and Static's PlayJam Channel with Cablevision in U.S.

OpenTV (NASDAQ National Market and Euronext Amsterdam: OPTV), the world's leading interactive television company, today announced its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2001.

Financial Highlights

For the quarter ended September 30, 2001, OpenTV's revenues were $25.1 million compared to $18.7 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2000. Third quarter 2000 results include the impact of OpenTV's acquisition of Spyglass, which closed on July 24, 2000. Third quarter 2001 results include the impact of OpenTV's acquisition of Static, which closed on July 2, 2001.

The Company's pro-forma(1) operating expenses for the quarter ended September 30, 2001 totaled $33.9 million compared to $25.2 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2000.

OpenTV's pro-forma net loss was $6.7 million, or $0.10 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2001 compared to a pro-forma net loss of $3.2 million, or $0.06 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2000. On a reported basis, the Company's net loss for the quarter ended September 30, 2001 was $118.5 million, or $1.71 per share, compared to a reported net loss of $83.4 million, or $1.49 per share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2000.

As of September 30, 2001, OpenTV had cash, cash equivalents and marketable debt securities of $195.1 million. Third quarter 2001 cash outlays included $9.2 million related to the Static acquisition and $4.7 million in capital expenditures.

"We are pleased to report yet another successful quarter for OpenTV and that we have surpassed the twenty million set-top box deployment mark," said OpenTV CEO James Ackerman. "Once again, we delivered another quarter of solid financial and operational results. We believe this quarter demonstrates our continued success as the leading interactive television company that provides integrated interactive television technology, services and content."

Core Platform Business Highlights

For the quarter ended September 30, 2001, OpenTV's core platform generated revenues totaling $22.5 million and a pro-forma operating profit of $3.4 million. Highlights for the quarter include:

-- Based on reports received to date, OpenTV announces it has surpassed 20 million set-top box middleware deployments, a doubling of set-top box deployments since announcing the Company reached 10 million deployments in October 2000. This is OpenTV's fourth consecutive quarter in excess of two million deployments. -- OpenTV increased its market-leading network operator customer base to 48 by announcing four additional customers, three of which are broadband cable networks. OpenTV announced that Israeli cable operator Tevel, with 430,000 subscribers, and ntl's Cablecom in Switzerland, with 1.4 million subscribers, have agreed to deploy its iTV platform. The Company also announced an agreement with Sichuan NTC to deploy OpenTV's iTV platform and an application suite on China's Henan Cable network of 1.5 million subscribers. Additionally, OpenTV announced an iTV platform agreement with Showtime, a Middle East satellite network operator with 100,000 subscribers. -- OpenTV's core platform portfolio - which includes the EN2 middleware, the Device Mosaic HTML engine, and the integrated EN2/Device Mosaic solution - continued to penetrate the U.S. digital television market. EchoStar announced that their DISH Network has deployed more than two million EN2-enabled set-top boxes. Cablevision launched their new suite of interactive services on Device Mosaic-enabled Sony high-end set-top boxes. -- OpenTV is a leader in enabling personal video recorder (PVR) functionality in set-top boxes. The Company has partnered to develop PVR solutions for EchoStar's 501 and BSkyB's Sky+ set-top boxes, which are now available to consumers in the U.S. and U.K., respectively. Applications Platform Business Highlights

-- PlayJam, Static's interactive entertainment and games channel, was launched as part of Cablevision's new interactive television service suite. PlayJam currently reaches over 9 million homes through cable and satellite networks in the U.S., the U.K. and France.

The Company's third quarter 2001 financial results conference call will be Webcast live on the Investor Relations section of http://www.opentv.com at 2:00PM PDT on Thursday, October 25, 2001, and will be available there through 5:00PM PST on Friday, November 2, 2001.

26/10/01

Another new New Indian channel "DD Bharati" will appear on Pas 10 soon, (See news section) it will be in Analogue and Digital. It seems to be aiming at the same market the recently launched "Splash Kids" channel is aimed at. No word on if they will have English language programming. Though they may in the educational programming segment.

Prof UR Rao's first announcement after taking charge as chairman of pubcaster Prasar Bharati's board recently was to declare that two non-performing channels of national broadcaster Doordarshan would be shut down some time soon. Well before that a new edutainment channel with a commitment to public service broadcasting to cater to the needs of children, health, music, dance and fine arts is being launched. DD Bharati is scheduled to go on air from Republic Day, 26 January, 2002.

DD Bharati will be a 24-hour channel available on PAS-10 on transponder no C-19 and C-23, both in analog and digital mode.

The channel will feature four hours of health programmes from 6 am, followed by six hours of children's programmes from 2 PM The channel will also have four hours of programmes on music, dance, fine arts from 8 PM

Doordarshan has broken up DD Bharati's programming into three segments. The morning segment will focus on meditation, yoga, and alternative systems of medicine, discussions with experts, documentary features on health related issues, and health news. It may also incorporate a one-hour segment of live phone-ins on health issues daily, officials say.

The second segment, which will focus on children aged between four and 18 years, will telecast cartoon films, wild life films, children's serials, counseling and sports, talent hunts, 'antakshari' programmes and magic shows. A unique feature would be a news bulletin 'by children for children'. Now didn't we here the same one from southern animation major Pentamedia at the launch of its kids' channel Splash.

The third segment will feature music, dance, fine arts, Indian classic music, countdown shows, event based programmes and travel shows. Folk, devotional and tribal music will also feature in this segment.

Purportedly a showcase of Indian culture, DD Bharati will focus on presenting the best of the country's literature through telefilms and serials. There will be documentaries on Gyanpeeth and Sahitya Akademi award winners too.

Prasar Bharati has now invited private producers to make programmes under the sponsored category for DD Bharati's prime time (8 to 10.30 PM) as well as the non-prime time slots.

The deadline for submitting programme proposals to DD is 5 PM on 9 November.

This one may be in orbit specifically for snooping

From http://www.economictimes.com/today/24poli02.htm

INDIA’S launch of three satellites by a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle yesterday without the usual fanfare has raised questions whether the country has begun experimenting with spy satellites.

Fuelling the speculation is the fact that India is in a state of heightened defence preparedness given the war raging in nearby Afghanistan.

?It is a question of interpretation,” Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K. Kasturirangan said here late yesterday. “Whatever you call it, earth observation or spying ... all I can say is that this satellite is a forerunner for a high-resolution satellite system.”

India, he indicated, would soon be in a position to place many such satellites in space at costs of about Rs 1 billion each.

What raised questions about India’s intentions was the fact that television crew and print journalists were not taken to the ISRO launch facility at Sriharikota, as is usually done. All news channels were given public broadcaster Doordarshan’s shots of the launch.

Kasturirangan admitted that security considerations compelled the space research organisation to launch the PSLV C3 without the hype of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle launch this April.

Many, especially in the Western military establishment, may be greatly interested in the imaging facilities the Indians can provide.

Especially if the images can pinpoint vehicle movements in the subcontinent to one-metre resolution, covering Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries in India’s neighbourhood.

For countries like the US, Britain and Russia, buying specific images from India would certainly be more cost-effective if such defence cooperation is agreed, space agency sources say.

?There is a market for this,” the ISRO chief conceded.

The PSLV placed two small European satellites - the German BIRD and the Belgian PROBA -- into orbit at 10:23 am.

The third satellite was India’s Rs 750 million Technology Experiments Satellite, which ISRO said had achieved a height of 572 km. The TES can spot cars and convoy movement on the ground.

The TES launch was scheduled at the beginning of 2002 but was speeded up, superseding the schedule of Cartosat, a remote sensing satellite, and the Ariane 5 flight, also giving rise to speculation here that due to the war situation in the region, this technology testing was given priority.

The final destination of one of the three satellites will be higher than the other two. But which one, none in ISRO is revealing. The usual orbit for a PSLV satellite is less than 900 km above the earth and it can weigh up to 1,200 kg.

But Kasturirangan emphasised that the idea was to launch “intermediate class” satellites and not the “three or four-tonne class” as “there is a niche market for this”.

The PSLV is about 45 metres tall and uses a four-stage solid and liquid propulsion system.

It first placed the Indian Remote Sensing ID in March 1999 into a polar orbit. ISRO calls it “a tried and tested workhorse” and space watchers say there is no better system to use than the PSLV for snooping.

Outlining ISRO’s schedule over the next few months, Kasturirangan said INSAT 3C was to be launched in December-January launch, INSAT 3E by the middle of 2002 and the next IRS by end of next year. Ariane 5 and Cartosat are due to be launched by this yearend. (IANS)

Demand ABC show netball Test in full

From http://foxsports.com.au

NETBALL AUSTRALIA chief executive Pam Smith has demanded a commitment from ABC TV that the national broadcaster will screen the third and deciding netball Test between Australia and New Zealand tomorrow afternoon in full.

"We want to see it right to its conclusion," Smith said.

Smith faxed ABC chairman Donald McDonald, managing director Jonathan Shier, and director of television Sandra Levy after Wednesday's second Test was cut short at 6pm with just over five minutes to fulltime.

But Smith received no reply, apart from an e-mailed copy of a statement by the ABC apologising to its audience cutting the second Test for "the inconvenience and disappointment that this situation caused".

Smith said if she had not received a reply this morning, she would seek personal assurances for a full telecast.

"Obviously, they'll be hearing from more people than just us wanting the same thing," she said.

Talkback radio yesterday showed a real depth of anger at the decision by ABC management - not its sports department - to unplug the live Test telecast.

The game had started five minutes late and caused programming problems for the ABC, which had its series Something in the Air programmed for 6pm (AEST).

"Australians feel insulted by their own national broadcaster," she said. "It's quite an extraordinary thing.

"Our girls were graceful in defeat. They were hurting anyway at the loss (58-47) so they definitely didn't need a kick in the teeth as well from our national broadcaster."

The players found out the telecast had been pulled when they were in the change rooms.

A spokeswoman for the ABC would not comment on Smith's request for a guarantee to show Saturday's third Test in full.

She said the ABC had expected the match to finish at two minutes to six and had wiped 120 seconds of program announcements to try to fit the game in but then had to pull it.

"Under these circumstances our general policy is to resume scheduled programs rather than stay with a live broadcast that will interrupt the scheduled programming," the ABC statement said.

"However, we realise we must be flexible about sport over-runs and decisions are made on a case-by-case basis."

Smith stressed it was important to remember ABC TV Sport was suffering the consequences of a management decision.

"They're between a rock and a hard place," Smith said.

"They can't come out and slam their management but they've been insulted as well."

The ABC has screened netball for a decade.

25/10/01

A late update very busy setting up this Athlon 1400 mhz system. The new Windows Xp takes a bit of getting used to. Speaking of Windows Xp. I caught a feed on B3 12363 V about 2pm NZ. The "Today Show" Windows XP Australian launch hosted by Rove. P.S the PC isn't mine, and I will probably have another to setup tommorow which will keep me busy also and probably delay the site update.

Intelsat 704 66E 3805 R The British Telecom mux with BBC World and Sky News is still on ,/enc., Sr 22900, Fec 3/4, East hemi beam.

NEWS

AOL Time Warner welcomes legal distribution in China

From http://www.adageglobal.com/cgi-bin/daily.pl?daily_id=6059

HONG KONG - AOL Time Warner has achieved a longtime goal--legal distribution of its programming in mainland China.

The agreement however, is limited to cable TV subscribers in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou near Hong Kong and even there, Chinese viewers will not be tuning into CNN, the media giant's flagship news channel.

Instead, they will have access to CETV channel, a 24-hour Mandarin-language information and entertainment channel. CETV was founded by Robert Chua in Hong Kong in 1995, acquired by Time Warner in June 2000 and relaunched by Turner in February, 2001.

As Minister Xu Guang Chun, director of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), explains, "This is the first time for a foreign TV institution to be granted cable TV carriage rights in mainland China."

It is also the first Sino-US cooperative agreement signed after last week's APEC meeting in Shanghai. The carriage agreement was signed this week at SARFT headquarters in Beijing by representatives of AOL Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System Asia/Pacific unit and GCTV, as well as China Central Television (CCTV), China's national television network, and China International Television Corporation (CITVC), the commercial branch of CCTV.

As part of the agreement, CCTV-9, CCTV's English-language news and information channel, will be carried on select Time Warner Cable systems, the first time a CCTV network will be carried on a 24-hour basis on any U.S. cable system.

The deal "represents a significant step," says Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner, and "is part of a sustained effort by our operating divisions to work with Chinese partners in creating products and services for this dynamic marketplace."

Star TV gets foothold for Phoenix in southern China

From http://www.adageglobal.com/cgi-bin/daily.pl?daily_id=6060

HONG KONG - While AOL Time Warner is enjoying its own success at gaining a foothold in mainland China's cable TV market, Rupert Murdoch's Star Group Limited in Hong Kong has something to cheer about as well.

China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has formally granted landing rights for the Phoenix Chinese Channel in the Pearl River delta region--the same southern Chinese region where AOL's CETV channel soon will be carried by one of the mainland's largest cable operators.

News Corp. owns just over one-third of the Mandarin-language Phoenix Chinese Channel, a publicly-traded company which has broadcast general entertainment programming in China out of Hong Kong for more than four years.

"As a major shareholder of Phoenix, Star is very pleased about this development. We see it as yet another milestone for Phoenix," says Star chairman and CEO, James Murdoch, who confirmed that Star's discussions with SARFT and China International Television Corporation (CITV) for landing rights of a new channel in the Guangdong province continue and are anticipated to soon reach a conclusion.

News Corp. has been negotiating with the Chinese government for years about launching a Star-branded channel in the mainland.

ABC's netball snub slammed

From http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,3116616%255E9787,00.html

IRATE Australian netballers claimed their professional image had been tarnished after ABC executives pulled the plug on live coverage of their Test match against New Zealand last night.

With just three minutes remaining in a thrilling Second Test in Invercargill, ABC executives decided to cut coverage and go to the scheduled 6pm program Something In The Air.

Australian captain Kathryn Harby-Williams and vice-captain Liz Ellis called on the Australian public to demand an explanation from the ABC for abruptly ending the TV coverage.

The world champion Australians were furious when told of the ABC's move after they had played themselves to a standstill.

New Zealand had just levelled the the three-Test netball series against world No.1 Australia with a thrilling 58-47 victory.

"It has made me very angry and it has made a mockery of the sport," Harby-Williams stormed.

"I can't imagine the impact it will have on the image of us as professionals. It's a personal insult."

Ellis said she was livid when told fans in Australia had been deprived of full match coverage and that she couldn't imagine it ever happening to male sporting teams like the rugby league Kangaroos or the rugby union Wallabies.

"It's an absolute disgrace," she said. "After the ABC had threatened to scrap the sport people were so excited when they came to the party to show the games live.

"To see this happen is devastating. I can't imagine why it happened.

"It smacks of hypocrisy and it is an insult to the players."

ABC TV's head of policy, Michael Ward, said the decision had been made by senior executives because the game started late in New Zealand and ran over time.

But an ABC source told The Daily Telegraph that in the half hour after the game the station had received a barrage of complaints from viewers.

"ABC Television had to make a decision to break off transmission of the match and resume scheduled programming with some minutes of the match remaining," Ward said

"The ABC delayed leaving the netball until the last minute, choosing to drop a number of scheduled program announcements to stay with the match as long as possible.

"However, when it became clear that the match would continue until after 6pm, the decision was made to go to the scheduled program, Something In The Air. "This was announced as the live broadcast ended."

Netball Australian chief executive Pam Smith last night said she had received a "courtesy call" from a member of the ABC sport department minutes before the game was unplugged.

"They would not have done it if it was one of the men's sports," Smith said.

"It's a slight on one of the most successful teams this country has ever produced.

"I will be taking it up officially with the ABC."

Earlier this year the ABC indicated it was thinking of changing its programming and that netball -- along with a number of other sports including women's basketball -- could be casualties of the change.

Netball Australia sent 20,000 signed petitions from netball fans from around the country calling on the station to continue its coverage which the ABC is now doing.

A one-woman band in the form of super shooter Irene van Dyk last night saw New Zealand level the series.

For 40 minutes of the hour-long game, van Dyk shot at 100 per cent -- a feat even more impressive given she was being marked by arguably the world's best goalie, Sydney's Liz Ellis.

The 190cm former South African captain was lethal under the net, ending the game with an incredible tally of 45 goals from 47 attempts.

24/10/01

The chatroom was fairly quiet last night. It was good to see a couple more people from NZ in there its nice to discuss "local satellite reception". A few reminders, ABC FLY was testing on B1 last night, this is not a new channel though I think it only runs after the ABC Kids programming has finished from 6pm onwards, it starts on Optus on channel 21 and Austar channel 14 November 1st, same date as ABC National Starts (B3,12407v) . FTV the Skin and fashion channel on Asiasat 2 is encrypting November 1st also, so once again we lose something but gain something else seems to be the way it is lately.

Live Netball NZ vs Aus, tonight, was on Mediasat last time and also B1 ABC feeds channels.

I have a toroidal (90 cm) which I've been setup but not yet completed. I
tried to follow the instructions which arrived with the dish but these are
only suitable for Sydney. I've been trying to calculate the Az/El for the
satellites and think I have a solution but haven't tried it yet.

The procedure so far.

a) Get the lat. & long. for the earth station.

b) Calc. the Az & El. for the bird/s.

c) The Azimuth values are for True North - this need to be corrected for
Magnetic North.

d) The El and corrected Az values need to be plotted on the provided graph
(with the dish).

e) From the graph, calculate the tilt angle. One way to do this is draw a RH
triangle on the graph and find the angle from arctan; i.e. tan(angle) =opp/adj.

That's the theory - I've tried this with the values for Sydney and get very
close results as to those on the graph. I've yet to it into practice. I got
the calculations as an Excel spreadsheet - if you're interested I could
forward you a copy.

Regards, Peter

From the Dish

Nothing received in my email..

NEWS

FTV encrypting 1 November

From indiantelevision.com

Come 1 November and French fashion channel FTV will become an encrypted feed.

Preparations for the conversion to a digital feed are on in full swing, says Rajan Kaaicker, CEO Distribution Group, Modi Entertainment Network, the channel's current distributer in India. According to Kaaicker, 60 per cent of the seeding operations concerning distribution of set top boxes have been completed. The full rollout is expected to be complete by 15 November, he says.

Kaaicker said Modi was using the more expensive Scientific Atlanta set tops costing roughly Rs 33,000 and had no plans to subsidise them. He however said that there would be various payment packages that would be worked out with operators. Kaaicker would not reveal how many boxes he planned to distribute across the country.

Queried as to whether distribution of the channel would be restricted post-encryption considering its niche character, Kaaicker said all-India distribution was what he was looking at as FTV was being positioned as a youth and lifestyle channel. He said currently FTV had a viewer base of 23 million and that was the viewership he expected post-encryption as well.

As to what price the channel was being offered, Kaaicker would only say it would be part of a package deal. Cable industry sources reveal that MEN is bundling FTV along with Hallmark and DD Sports, the two other channels it currently distributes along with French music channel MCM. The cost for all three channels has been put at Rs 13.15 in the metros. The sources say that for the present no price tag is being put on FTV but the costs of both DD Sports and Hallmark have been hiked and the softener as it were is that FTV comes along with the other two. According to the sources, DD Sports which was earlier priced at Rs 5.50 will now cost Rs 7.15 while Hallmark will go up from Rs 3 to Rs 6.

How the cable operators will respond to this move is still unclear though. It should be noted that representatives of two MSOs in Mumbai said they were yet to receive notification on the issue. The representative of a third MSO, while acknowledging that they had received an intimation, said a decision had yet to be taken as to whether to accept the new package rates.

The question that has no clear answer is who would be willing to pay for FTV. It seems to attract a very fragmented viewer base and that too at odd hours. One cable operator had this insight to offer though. According to him, the channel is very popular in the smaller centres for its "hot" content.

It is also true that the monies coming to FTV through ad sales is zilch and moving to a pay mode makes sense if for no other reason than the fact that a regular income source is established.

FTV beams off the Asiasat 2 satellite.

23/10/01

Live chat in the chatroom tonight 8.30pm Syd time and from 9 pm NZ onwards. Speaking of chatrooms I asked Christian Lyngmark why dosn't he run "Lyngsatchat" a chatserver via his site he said he can't because local law would make him legally responsible for any illegal activity discussed via his site. A pity because I could see great possibilitys for such a huge chatroom. Perhaps he needs to host a chatserver somewhere with freedom of speech.

There seems to be quite a bit of interest in Toroidal dish's at the moment. Does anyone have decent setup instructions I can put on the site? lots of people seem to be having trouble setting them up.

China will soon allow more foreign-backed television broadcasters to launch services on the mainland, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

China’s Broadcasting Authority will permit Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and AOL Time Warner to broadcast to viewers in southern Guangdong province, Liu Changle, chairman of the Hong Kong-listed Phoenix Satellite Television told the daily. The new approvals would come within weeks, he added.

China last month said it was considering allowing News Corporation and AOL Time Warner access to cable viewers in a restricted area of Guangdong in what would be an unprecedented opening of the communist nation’s tightly-controlled media market.

?It is clear China will continue to open up the sky for foreign broadcasters,” Liu said, quoted by the daily. Liu, however, does not expect a sudden and massive influx of foreign television operators into China.

?Only a couple more will be approved in the near term. It is the Chinese government’s general practice to liberalise individual sectors gradually never in a rush,” he said.

Craigs comment, Perhaps we will see more services using Asiasat 2/3? to broadcast to China.

AOL TIME SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH BEIJING CHANNEL

From (Reuters)

The United States media giant AOL Time Warner Inc on Monday declared that it had signed an agreement with Beijing to distribute an entertainment cable TV channel in southern China in exchange for carrying a Chinese-government channel in certain parts of the U.S.

Under the terms of this groundbreaking pact, AOL Time Warner will broadcast its CETV channel in Guangdong province starting in January, featuring both original Chinese fare and the dubbed versions of American cartoons and shows such as “Miami Vice” and “La Femme Nikita”.

In turn, AOL Time Warner will carry CCTV-9, an English-language news and information channel of the state network China Central Television, on its cable systems in New York, Houston and Los Angeles on a 24-hour basis. CCTV is currently shown in the United States only in certain programming blocks. The agreement is to allow a major foreign-owned broadcaster direct access to viewers in China, although many overseas channels can be seen in luxury hotels and in homes with satellite dishes.

However, last week, Hong Kong-listed Phoenix Satellite Television, 38 per cent of which is owned by a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and has been “unofficially” broadcasting into China for 5 years, which said that it was given state approval to land its signal in Guangdong province.

INTELIVISION LAUNCHES SPLASH FOR KIDS

From http://www.hclinfinet.com/2001/OCT/WEEK4/3/BusInsideTS5frame.jsp

Intelivision Limited, seeded by Pentamedia Graphics with Rs one crore investment, announced the launch of its kids’ channel, ‘Splash’, on Monday.

Targeted at audience in age group of 3-18, in the initial stages, this English channel would receive 75 per cent of its programme from international studios such as Columbia Tri-Star, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers and BBC, among others, while the remaining programming would be taken from in-house production.

The channel was test run for two months and launched on October 18. Though it was seeded by Pentamedia Graphics, at present, Pentamedia holds only 30 per cent equity in Intelivision, while the remaining equity is held by a few associate companies and NRIs, said P.S. Sundaram, director and chief executive officer.

The company has an authorised capital of Rs 10 crore and has invested Rs 4 crore into the channel, till now. Additional investment of Rs 5 crore would be made in the next six months of operation, Sundaram said. Intelivision plans to expand its equity either through private placement, deferred credit or term loans, he added.

This apart, Intelivision, which has secured the license for teleport to uplink channels from Chennai, is likely to tie-up with broadcasters to set up the teleport facility in January next year, Sundararm said. Once the teleport facility is in place, a bouquet of 6-8 channels could be be uplinked, he added.

Southern Spice and Jeevan TV ( Malayalam channel), have signed up for this facility. Apart from ‘Splash’, Intelivision comprises ‘i vision’ that provides content for Indian and overseas channels and ‘i-service,’ which will provide consultancy for programming.

The channel, which is at present being telecast in southern India, would soon be available in the rest of the country. The channel has already earned an advertising revenue of Rs 3 crore. The company hopes to break even in the second year of its operations.

Intelivision’s kids channel to make a national splash

From http://www.financialexpress.com/fe20011023/con1.html

Chennai-based Intelivision, a company originally promoted by Pentamedia Graphics Ltd, plans to go national with its exclusive channel for children Splash by mid-November. The free-to-air channel was launched in Chennai on Monday and is now available in two million homes in South India.

Intelivision vice president, finance and company secretary PK Sundaresan said, “The television company is talking to other cable operators like Hathaway to take the channel to the rest of the country.”

Targeted primarily at four to 14 years-old “schoolers’, the content of the channel is classified into three broad categories  50 per cent entertainment, 25 per cent edutainment and 25 per cent infotainment.

The programming includes animation, live action, “clean” feature films, music, dance and entertainment, apart from educational and informative features.

Currently, about 75 per cent of this is sourced from international studios like Columbia Tri-star, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers and BBC among others.

Later, the company plans to have a completely Indian channel. Programmes will also be available in multiple language feeds  Tamil and Hindi currently.

Craigs comment, This is Splash Kids channel on NSS 703 at 57E, I did read they planned to also transmit FTA via Asiasat 3 at some stage.

SET hopes to evade legal wrangle with WorldTel

From http://www.business-standard.com/today/corp4.asp?Menu=2

Sony Entertainment Television (SET) may manage to avert a legal battle with Mark Mascarenhas' WorldTel, which has threatened to sue SET over non-payment of advances totalling $0.75 million for coverage of cricket matches in Bangladesh.

According to the $17 million deal with SET, WorldTel was to produce and license to SET televison coverage of certain Bangladesh Cricket Board cricket tours.

Sony is now rethinking future plans and has refused to pay up the advance for the upcoming series against Zimbabwe.

Kunal Dasgupta, CEO of SET India, said: "We are negotiating with WorldTel over the issue and are confident of settling the matter amicably. We do not believe that the matter would result in a litigation."

Earlier this month, Drew and Napier LLC, legal representatives of WorldTel, had served a notice to SET Satellite (Singapore ) to pay all amounts due under an agreement as well as to confirm the performance of certain obligations. The notice also threatened to sue SET in the absence of such payment and confirmation.

The agreement was signed on November 9, 2000, and specified 13 cricket tours that WorldTel would cover for SET, the territorial rights that SET would acquire, the fee that SET would pay and the schedule of payment. The comprehensive agreement was to be drawn later.

As per the agreement, according to the legal notice, WorldTel produced and delivered to SET, which accepted and telecast the inaugural test between India and Bangladesh which was held in November last year.

However, after WorldTel invoiced SET for a fee of $500,000, SET did not pay the amount and wanted the comprehensive agreement to be in place before payment.

SET also claimed in a letter to WorldTel that there was no legal binding agreement between the two parties. However SET has subsequently paid the amount on October 9, company officials confirmed.

WorldTel has an agreement with the Bangladesh Cricket Board according to which it has to cover each tour set out in the agreement.

The current tussle comes in the wake of the impending tour by Zimbabwe to Bangladesh scheduled to commence on November 8, 2001.

The first instalment of $750,000 under the agreement was due on September 24 , which is 45 days before the event and which SET has refused to pay in the absence of any formal agreement on the matter.

22/10/01

Not much news today a few emails from readers, its always good to get emails and hear what everyone is up to. Good to see at least one dealer is letting the government know about the TARBS situation. I doubt Senator Alston has ever heard of TARBS though. Isn't he the one who created Australia current messed up DTV Terrestrial system?

From my Emails & ICQ

From Tony Drexal (FTA Satellite Services)

Hi Craig,

Here is just one of the many communications I am having with the Australian and Greek Governments concerning the operations of a pay-tv company.

I once again will state:

NONE OF THIS ACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN NECESSARY IF THEY HAD NOT GONE THE EXTREME MEASURES OF SCRAMBLING THE INTERNATIONAL C BAND SIGNALS.

(Foxtel, Optus, and Austar never treated people this way)

Dear Mr Drexal

Thank you for your Email of 7th October 2001 to the Hon Tony Abbot MP, Minister for Employment Workplace relations and small business reguarding your concerns that satellite companies through out Australia are being directly affected by TARBS an Australian Pay Tv company.

The Minister has noted your views. As the matter that you have raised falls within the portfolia responsibilities of Senator the Hon Richard Alston, Minister fo Communications, Information technology and the Arts. I have referred your email to Senator Alston for his attention.

Yours sincerely

Melanie Wilson
Parlimentrary and Government Team
16 October 2001

From "Siamglobal"

MAY I BE PERMITTED TO REPORT THAT THE INTELSAT 704 MUX AT 3805R IS STILL UP AND RUNNING AND THAT SKY NEWS AUDIO , ( THE ONLY DOMESTIC UK CHANNEL AVAILABLE IN SE ASIA OTHER THAN BY SUBSCRIPTION ) IS STILL THERE FTA 24 HRS A DAY. THE REPORT ON YOUR SITE 19 OCT THAT IT HAD GONE IS THANKFULLY INCORRECT.

SINCERELY
SIAMGLOBAL
BKK

From Robert Anthony 21/10/01

VH1 NYC Benefit Concert was on PAS-8 3940 MHz (H) Adhoc 2.

From Mathew Nelson

Tuning Channel has been activated. Optus Test Card with feed from "REF TONE
- Aurora Audio Reference" Radio in the background.
TUNE is still on the other channel, (Ch19 on my box)
ABC NAT is still clear - nothing shown but. anc Ch62 is still clear with
another Optus Test Card.

Australia’s Foreign Ministry said Australia will launch four Japanese spy satellites beginning 2003.

Details of the launch and about the spy satellites were not released, however. In addition, Australia will also launch two scientific, research and commercial satellites.

Australia will also build two satellite ground stations at Telstra Corporation’s International Telecommunications Center in the western Australian capital of Perth. The stations will help Japan enhance its space-based information gathering capability and will communicate with all six Japanese satellites.

The satellite launches and the building of the new stations are part of an agreement between Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) and Xantic, a joint-venture company established in cooperation with Telstra.

The Foreign Ministry said Australia’s hosting of the ground stations will further strengthen the economic, political and security aspects of its relationship with Japan.

21/10/01

Lots of activity on B1/B3 last night which is good to see, Sky NZ on 12608 V is still FTA, the "ENG26" channel seems to be some kind of internal feeds channel, its seen sometimes FTA with colour bars, last night I saw there a Broadcast Tower Feed card and Golf from the U.K was on after it then later they ran English Soccer. Earlier in the evening they had a Telstra card then NPC Rugby. Keep an eye on that one details are.

The Hallmark Channel has inked licensing deals for a raft of feature films and
dramas to air on its international channels, including Mission: Impossible and
Star Trek. For the channel’s Taiwan feed, Hallmark has acquired 15 movies from
Paramount International, including Mission: Impossible, Days of Thunder, The
Hunt For Red October, The Saint and five films from the Star Trek franchise.
Hallmark has also acquired a number of titles from CBS Broadcast International,
including a seventh season - 27 episodes - of Touched By An Angel for broadcast
throughout Asia. Also in the bundle is a drama series Judging Amy for its feed
in Turkey and 150 one-hour episodes of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman, destined for
its Central Europe feed. Judging Amy already airs on the Hallmark Channel in
Spain and Portugal.

NO MORE WWF PPV ON DIRECTV

World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. on October 15 announced that it
would no longer offer pay-per-view programming on DirecTV, starting with the
``No Mercy'' pay-per-view event on October 21. WWFE and DirecTV have been in
negotiations over a new contract, but have not been able to come to terms on
the fundamental issue of what the revenue split should be. The prior contract
expired in January 2001, and WWFE granted several extensions during that time
while the parties continued to negotiate. WWFE is encouraging its fans who are
DirecTV subscribers to seek alternative ways to view `` No Mercy'' this Sunday,
as well as future WWFE PPV programs.

ARIRANG TV JOINS DISH NETWORK

On October 18, DISH Network added to its offer Arirang TV, the only
English-language Korean channel, to consumers in the United States. Arirang TV
showcases entertaining and informative programs for viewers of every age and
background, featuring news, sitcoms, dramas, quiz shows, financial updates,
music, documentaries, and Korea's latest box office releases (sub-titled in
English and Spanish). Arirang TV, owned by The Korea International Broadcasting
Foundation, launched in 1999 and now reaches more than 40 million households in
Asia-Pacific and Europe as well as North and South America.
Internet - http://www.arirangtv.com

information.

E! ENTERTAINMENT SETS OUT GLOBAL EXPANSION PLANS

Although E! Entertainment programming is distributed in over 120 territories
worldwide, the company is focusing on efforts to rollout in markets where it
has not had a presence to date. According to Kevin MacLellan, senior vice
president of E! Networks International, the company would like to launch fully
dedicated channels in such markets as the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand and
Australia. According to MacLellan, there is also an interest in launching a
Spanish-language E! channel for the U.S. Hispanic market. The idea would be to
use E!
MacLellan’s ambitions is to launch a second channel brand, Style, in Latin
America and Asia. Style currently has some 15 million subscribers worldwide.

A S I A

IHT WORLD ON STAR WORLD

Fact Based Communications, producer of International Herald Tribune
Television’s business newsmagazines, and STAR Group have signed a deal under
which IHT-TV’s IHT World will go out to 16 million TV homes across Asia on the
STAR World channel. The deal between FBC and STAR, which is News Corp.’s Asian
unit, marks a key step in the growth of the Rome-based provider of financial
news for TV and the Internet. IHT-TV programming will now be distributed in 55
countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. IHT World is a specially
tailored edition of the IHT’s “Global Economic Review,” co-produced by FBC with
Italian pubcaster RAI. The award-winning program is backed by the Paris-based
International Herald Tribune, the newspaper co-owned by the New York Times and
the Washington Post.

AUSTRALIA

WORLD CUP PLAYOFF ON SEVEN NETWORK

Seven Network has won the TV rights to the country’s football World Cup
qualifier. The Australian broadcaster reportedly paid about A$500,000 for the
game, which it will show free of charge rather than on its pay-TV outlet C7.
Seven is upping its football coverage to combat rivals Nine and Ten Networks
coverage of Australian rules football.

CHINA

RESTRICTIONS FOR FOREIGN BROADCASTERS?

Uncertainty continues to surround attempts by foreigners to gain entry into
China's TV market after reports from Hong Kong that the State Administration
for Radio, Film & Television (SARFT) will not issue any licences to overseas
broadcasters in 2002. The Chinese-language Hong Kong Economic Times quoted
unnamed SARFT sources saying that it wished to prevent 'excessive penetration'
by foreigners into China's broadcasting sector. Currently 21 companies hold
licences that allow them to broadcast in China so they can be picked up by
cable TV operators and carried under excerpt agreements. Direct satellite
broadcasts are allowed, but they are only seen in hotels with three or more
stars, housing compounds for foreigners, government offices and select
businesses.

NDS GROUP SIGNS INTERACTIVE TV DEAL WITH CCTV

NDS Group has struck a deal with China Central Television (CCTV) to provide the
mainland's first digitally interactive service. NDS’s Chinese-language
application is the third interactive television sports service it has
developed. It allows viewers to choose from four sports broadcasts, while
providing simultaneous access to a number of additional services. These
services include checking the results of other competitions; local and national
news headlines; and a message board linked to CCTV's Internet Web site. The
application will be launched next month on CCTV-5, the official sports channel
for the Ninth National Games. It will reach provincial cable networks via a
digital cable platform established by China's Information Network Centre and
will be controlled by NDS's Open VideoGuard conditional access system. CCTV has
11 channels, carrying more than 138 hours of programming daily. The television
network reaches more than 84 per cent of the population. The network estimates
it has more than 900 million viewers.

INDIA

MID-DAY MULTIMEDIA AND ZEE NEWS TO COOPERATE

MID-DAY Multimedia Ltd said on October 17 that its board of directors has
approved a memorandum of understanding signed by the management to undertake a
strategic alliance with Zee News Satellite Television Channel. "Basically,
Mid-Day will provide content in the form of soft news for a branded programme
that will go up on the Zee News platform from January 2002," said an official.

B4U TV PLANS IPO

In a bid to raise funds, B4U Television Network is planning to go in for an
initial public offering (IPO) in the third quarter of 2002, Mr Ravi Gupta, CEO,
B4U Worldwide, said. "IPO plans are in the offing and the timing could be
between July to September 2002," Mr Gupta said. B4U Television Network is
expected to end the current fiscal with an operating profit of $2 million. The
next fiscal would see profits, Mr Gupta said. B4U Music, which is seen in 14
million homes in India, entered profitability in the first-year of its
operation, Mr Gupta said. B4U Bouquet is scheduled to go pay in the second
quarter of 2002. "We have signed for technical solutions. Once these are in
place, we plan to go pay," he said. B4U Television Network recently launched
B4U Movies, a 24-hour Bollywood movie channel. Apart from movies, the channel
also telecasts Bollywood-based programmes. The channel is likely to telecast
South Indian films dubbed in Hindi. "This will help us expand our base," Mr
Gupta said.

RAJ TV TO BUILD TELEPORT AND EARTH STATION

RAJ Television Network Ltd, which runs the Tamil satellite channel Raj TV, on
October 18 formally commissioned its own teleport and earth station. The
teleport has been put up at a cost of about Rs 8 crore and, at present, can
provide uplinking for six channels, of which two are taken up by the two Raj TV
channels. Work on constructing a teleport that can provide uplinking facilities
to at least 20 channels has started and is expected to be completed in about
six months. Raj TV obtained the teleport licence and started using its own
teleport from April 5, 2001, but until then it was physically sending the tapes
to Bangkok where it had an uplinking arrangement with the Thaicom - III
satellite. The company plans to market the teleport facility to all those
satellite channels that had obtained the uplinking licence from the Indian
government.

SOUTH KOREA

KDB TO GET DIGITAL SATELLITE LICENSE

The Ministry of Information and Communication plans to give Korea Digital
Broadcasting (KDB) a licence for digital broadcasting via satellite by early
next month, the ministry said on October 17. The broadcaster filed an
application to obtain the licence for its 76 television and 60 audio channels.
The ministry also said it plans to issue the licence for 10 transponders from
Koreasat 3, leased by the broadcaster, after deliberation on issues such as
technical standards. KDB is planning to use the six broadcasting and four
communications transponders of Koreasat 3, the country’s broadcasting
communication satellite launched in September 1999. A ministry official said he
expects the nation to enter the satellite broadcasting era later this year if
the licence is issued next month. The advent of digital satellite broadcasting
is forecast to create 7 trillion won in production and 60,000 jobs by 2005 for
related industries including equipment manufacturers, the ministry said.

20/10/01

Good news for those that can get Sky NZ on B1, the transponder on 12608 V has the following FTA at the moment, Prime TV, Sundance movies, Sky Sports Extra, NHK, Wolf Radio, and I note since this afternoon, a Telstra Testcard there as well. the Mundine Fight is on tonight, I don't think there will be a FTA feed anywhere but you never know. I will be watching it off Sky NZ if its still FTA there. (See screenshot below, seems I am authorized for it ;-). ABC Northern on B1 has had a power increase. Some other new Splash kids channel on NSS703 at 57E has launched officially (This channel also plans to start its FTA service up on Asiasat 3)

Netball NZ vs Australia is live currently on Mediasat Ocassional 2 feed on B3 (12336v)

Chennai based animation major Pentamedia Graphics Ltd (PGL) may be facing difficulties in other areas but that did not put a spoke in the formal launch of its kids channel Splash today.

Targeted at children below 14, Splash is a free-to-air 24-hour digital channel promoted by Intellivision, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pentamedia.

Test transmission of the channel began on August 17 as a seven-hour block from 2:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

Among the shows the channel is showcasing are Splash-o-Paedia and Splash In, two programmes that explore facts and examine current affairs and are anchored by children. These two shows will be aired on Sundays at 9.30 pm and 10.30 pm respectively.

Splash will be the first channel to kickstart with India-specific animated programmes like Pot Pourri and India Folk Tales. While Pot Pourri takes a look at Indian culture and art, India Folk Tales will feature interesting tales with engrossing plots and deep moral and philosophical values.

The channel has also lined up Casper, the friendly ghost on weekends at 9 am and Splash Busters a movie block for the movie buff. The channel promises to air Hollywood blockbusters like Back to Future I,II and III, Flintstones, Junior and The Nutty Professor.

According to reports, Rs 100 -120 million has been sunk into the venture and Pentamedia hopes to achieve revenues of Rs 140 million in the first year of operations. The channel has hired transponder space on Intelsat so as to target the markets in neighboring countries as well.

19/10/01

There is still very little news around, Hopefully there will be plenty of eyes looking for feeds this weekend. That's why the mailing list is there for quickly notifying others of activity that has been found. It's interesting to note PTV leaving Thaicom 3, maybe Asiasat 3 PTV will leave next? I will be running the Links checker over the site later tonight and doing some maintenance.

Talks between Sony Entertainment Television and Aaj Tak are stuck, as the news channel from the India Today stable has stalled its plans to enter overseas markets.

While Sony is keen on distributing the news channel in India as part of its bouquet, Aaj Tak wants the tie up primarily for the global market. “We wanted to take Aaj Tak to the US, UK and the Middle East through the Sony network, but we have put on hold our expansion plans, as we want to currently consolidate our position in India. We are not proceeding with the talks at this stage,” said TV Today Network executive director and chief executive officer G Krishnan.

SET India CEO Kunal Dasgupta agreed that the two companies had not made much progress in entering into a distribution agreement. “The management at Aaj Tak has to make up its mind whether they want to encrypt the channel. Besides, they are interested about getting the channel distributed internationally. We are keen on the Indian market, though we are also interested in the overseas distribution,” he said.

Aaj Tak has also stalled its plans to launch an English feed. “It is not in our immediate plans. We are putting our resources and efforts on covering the war against terrorism. But we see an opportunity in an English news channel,” he said. While BBC and CNN are international channels, Star News is the only local channel addressing this audience.

Aaj Tak was also in talks with Sony for sharing the platform in the direct-to-home (DTH) business. However, there has been no development in DTH the business yet to accelerate the process of pulling the two companies together.

Aaj Tak sees the war in Afghanistan as an opportunity to increase viewership and stay a free-to-air channel to augment its reach. Mr Krishnan said the channel was ahead of Zee News in ratings, according to TAM and Intam data.

?We were down for just one week, when the time spent on our channel was two minutes less than Zee News, as indicated by Intam. But we are back to leadership position. According to TAM, we have always been ahead in ratings in the coverage of the war in Afghanistan.”

The distribution realignment is yet to take place as talks between AOL-Time Warner and Sony have not matured. “There is no movement on the talks, but we have not called off the discussions,” said Mr Dasgupta.

Aaj Tak would give Sony a general news channel in its bouquet. It already distributes a business channel, CNBC. Rival companies Star and Zee run their own news channels.

Doordarshan television awards on 11 December

From http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k1/oct/oct59.htm

In a bid to recognize talent within (and maybe also kick in some much needed enthusiasm) the national broadcaster is holding its own 'Doordarshan Awards 2000-2001' for excellence in different fields of television.

To be held at the Sri Fort auditorium in Delhi on 11 December 2001, the awards will cover excellence in thematic, aesthetic and technical quality of programming for television produced by the different Doordarshan Kendras (stations).

The awards ceremony, which promises to be a mega event showcasing the best DD has to offer, will be telecast live on the DD1 national network from 7 pm onwards on 11 December.

The DD Mumbai team headed by its director Mukesh Sharma will be looking after the ground event while live telecast will be handled by Doordarshan Delhi Kendra.

The awards will be judged by a committee headed by the controller of programmes, DD, Mandi House, New Delhi, with liaison work between all the Doordarshan networks being handled by Shehzadi Simon, DD Delhi.

Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has agreed to inaugurate the awards presentation ceremony with information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj as the other main VIP invitee, says Sharma.

According to Sharma: "DK Mumbai have sent in their nominations for 22 of the categories."

The various categories under which the Doordarshan awards 2000-2001 will be presented are:

A

1. Most innovative Programme
2. Best Music Programme
3. Best Agriculture (Rural / Social) Programme
4. Best Documentary
5. Best Telefilm
6. Best Serial (Play)
7. Best Children's Programme
8. Best Youth Programme
9. Best Women's Programme
10. Best Sports Programme
11. Best Programme on Wildlife and Environment
12. Best Science and Technology Programme
13. Best Dance Programme
14. Best Cinematography
15. Best Sound Recording
16. Best Set Design and Art Direction
17. Best Animation
18. Best Editing
19. Best News Report of the year
20. Best Make-up
21. Best Graphics
22. Live Event of the Year / OB (Outdoor broadcast)
23. Lifetime Achievement
24. Best Spot
25. Best TV Show

B. Engineering and Technical Awards. There will be two awards, the first and the second prize for all categories under this head.

1. Best installed Studio / HPT Project in country
2. Best installed LPT/VLPT Transponder
3. Best Maintained Kendra in the country
4. Best Maintained DMC in the country
5. Best designed building in the country

C. Individual Awards

1. Best Technical Paper
2. Best Innovation

D. Best Doordarshan Kendra

18/10/01

Very little happening today. Ihug's email server seems a little delayed at the moment so not much emails comming in. Perhaps they are checking them for suspicious white power? The Satfacts section has been updated. I note today the following load from Skys NIT, I hope they get the SKY receivers to work with FTA signals such as TVNZ.

Optus B1 12608 V "Eng 45" Vpid 517 Apid 655 Sid 1026 (was running some kind of tests with Video and Clock up the top) usually only see FTA colour bars here.(Note this is Sky NZ)

NEWS

Nothing to report

17/10/01

The chat room was good fun last night despite a smaller than usual turnout. Intelsat 902 at 62E has enabled its cband services the coverage area on Global and South West beams cover most of Australia (See Lyngsat site for footprints and details) you will need a circular feed setup for "Proper" reception.

I live in the Campbelltown area on a hilly area where I am in between two transmission towers. Clear view to both of them .When my antenna is facing towards Thaicom3 one tower directly facing to my dish. When I am on Asiaset 3 the other tower hitting the dish from the side ( direction from East) I can receive Sabe TV, the Indian Music channel but Arirang (3755 MHz) is not even showing any signal. Thaicom 3 does not exists for me( 3424 MHz Korean channel on it would also be good). 3660 MHz Dubai on Asiaset 2 also can not get but everything else after that is fine.

We checked it with spectrum analyser and it shows two digital carrier signal picks around the 3700 MHZ and 3500 MHz spectrum.

I tried to shield the dish with galvanised iron with not much success

I reckon that some kind of filter might be the idea since I tried shielding, moving, the dish , fine tune LNB but no avail.

CNN International FTA on Arabsat 2A 26.0E hey do you think I can get this one? No that sucks even if I could get the sat in my view the footprint covers only India C-band that means India can get it! Bummer

CNN International FTA on Astra 1B 19.2 E even on Astra 1H at the same orbital location two feeds FTA one analogue and one digital they are FTA its an outrage!!!!

It looks likes in that part of the world they are FTA more than in our part of the world I wonder why?

have any ideas if we could pull in those footprints hahahahaha!

Could you post my e-mail on your site to make my point clear if you are going to encrypt then fine please encrypt everywhere!

That's justice for you
THANKS
George
THAILAND

From the Dish

Yamal 102 90E 3645 L "TV 6 Moskva has been, replaced by a test card.

Intelsat 902 62E "This satellite now active on Cband, C band services have moved here from the older Intelsat 602." (Yes the SW beam here covers most of Australia, let have some reports, you will need a circular feed for best reception)

Intelsat 902 62E 4173 R & L also "Feeds", SR 5632, global beam

NEWS

Pay TV customers tuning in for free

From http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/17/biztech/comment1.html

Up to 10 per cent of Austar and Foxtel customers could be watching pay TV for free, thanks to a burgeoning black market in pirated smart cards.

The pay TV industry is concerned about the prevalence of fraudulent smart cards installed in set-top boxes which enable viewers to watch the service for little or no cost.

It is estimated piracy affects between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of revenue. Satellite services are much more vulnerable to piracy than cable as the infrastructure is easier to install and the smart cards are encrypted differently.

As most of Austar's 430,000 customers watch via a satellite signal, the regional pay TV company is most exposed to piracy.

Foxtel has 270,000 satellite customers (representing about 35 per cent of its 760,000 total subscriber base) and Optus has 36,000 satellite customers.

Pirates sell counterfeit smart cards for as much as $250 each in pubs in regional areas. Pay TV operators buy their authorised smart cards for $US10 ($20) wholesale. Both Wollongong and Newcastle have been identified as piracy "hot beds".

Although Austar acknowledged piracy was an issue, the company denied that 10 per cent of its customer base was watching the service illegally.

"I'd be surprised. I think that would be at the high end," said Austar spokesman Mr Bruce Meagher. "It's an issue without being a major business inhibitor."

Foxtel spokesman Mr Mark Furness said piracy was a "minor problem" in Australia.

"We understand the threat, but we counteract it by using measures employed overseas," said Mr Furness.

As part of their efforts to stamp out piracy, Foxtel and Austar regularly engage in random sting operations where they change the card encryption algorithm. Viewers who don't own legitimate smart cards then lose access to the pay TV service.

The industry is also relying on the Digital Amendment to the Copyright Act which came into effect in March. Pay TV operators are now able to prosecute people who make and sell pirated smart cards. There have been several successful prosecutions recently.

Mindport, the company that supplies the set-top box systems which decode the satellite pay TV signal, is pushing for Austar and Foxtel to upgrade their smart cards to counteract piracy. Mindport wants to replace existing smart cards - some of which have been in the field since 1995 - with a new model card.

Craigs comment, they only have themselves to blame for the massive amounts of piracy the cards should of been changed long ago or even the whole encryption moved to NDS.

PanAmSat seeks $2bn in finance

From http://news.ft.com

PanAmSat, the satellite transmission group, plans to raise $2bn in bank debt to repay its parent company, Hughes Electronics, in a move that could help smooth the way for a potential takeover of Hughes.

PanAmSat said it was seeking to raise $2bn in bank debt and long-term notes. The finance would allow it to repay an inter-company loan with Hughes. The payment would help to reduce Hughes' debt, possibly easing the way for a deal with News Corp or Echostar. Both companies have made bids for Hughes, which owns satellite TV service DirecTV.

Hughes' share price has fallen in recent months, raising questions about the proposed deal with News Corp and raising the possibility that General Motors, Hughes' parent, may not be able to extract as much cash as originally hoped from the transaction.

JSAT, Sony develop two-way satellite dish

From http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=844027839

TOKYO: JSAT Corp, Japan's biggest communications satellite operator, on Tuesday said that it had jointly developed with Sony Corp a compact, inexpensive antenna for two-way satellite communications.

JSAT said that the antenna, 45 cm in diameter, would be as little as one-third as expensive to make as its 75 cm dish, currently its smallest, while substantially cutting installation costs.

A JSAT spokesman said that the company had no target date for launching commercial services with the new compact system, although they could begin as early as next year.

He added that the system, expected to offer download speeds up to 30 mbps and upload speeds up to 128 kbps, would broaden the market for two-way broadband satellite communications, which is currently limited largely to electric utilities and other big firms in need of back-up communications systems for emergencies.

Among potential customers for the cheaper, more compact system would be Japan's ubiquitous convenience store chains.

JSAT's shares rose on Tuesday, trading 2.09 per cent higher in mid-afternoon at 731,000 yen, modestly outperforming the benchmark Nikkei average's 1.5 per cent rise. The shares pulled back, however, from their early high of 749,000 yen.

Sony was up 1.86 per cent at 4,940 yen.
( REUTERS )

16/10/01

Live chat tonight in the chatroom usual time 8.30pm Syd time, and starting 9 pm NZ (so others in NZ don't have to stay up to late). Reporters confirm B3 power changes on some services. The Satfacts page on the left has been updated.

Optus B1 160E 12265 V "The ABC TV Northern mux on tp 1 has moved from 12258 V" ( I disagree with this one Zapara I checked my Nokia is reporting 12260 V as normal , Very strong data signal is still there on 12670 V as well)

Optus B3 156E Power increases noticed on V beams?

GE 1A 108.2E 12636 V "Feeds, Encoder 6 " Sr 4285, sorry no Fec details, First report of this satellite. Viewers location unknown, This satellite is KU only and has coverage to Greater China: 8-16 Transponders, NE Asia/Philippines:8-16 Transponders, South Asia: 0-8 Transponders. Its not expected to reach into Australia but our Asian readers may be able to find something footprint map is here http://www.geamericom.com/satellite/ge1a.html

Southern regional language powerhouse Sun Network does not let the grass grow under its feet. Hardly had the dust settled on the relaunch of potential rival Vijay TV under the Star India banner, than it announced the high profile launch of its movie channel - Kondattam TV (KTV) - set for 22 October.

Indications are that the launch of the channel was advanced in response to the happenings on the Vijay front. Promoter Kalanidhi Maran is pulling out all the stops to ensure that Star is not allowed to gain a firm foothold in Tamil Nadu, it appears.

Kondattam, which means celebration, is targetted at the family. The focus is movies, movies and more movies. Three movies will be shown a day, one of which will be a major blockbuster. The new channel will take advantage of Sun Network's library of over 5000 movies. Because of this another network will find it difficult to enter the film market, says Santosh Nair, marketing head, New Age Entertainment, which is handling promotion and marketing of the channel.

Sun Network will hold a 100 per cent stake in KTV, which will be aired 24-Hours in Tamil. Sun has allocated a budget of Rs 70 million to promote KTV. Full page advertisements in major publications like Hindu and Dinathanthi have been appearing over the past fortnight in order to build excitement. Huge hoardings in Chennai have also been taken out.

Rajnikanth who is a God among movie goers in Tamil nadu, is one of the stars whose films will be shown on the new channel. In fact, when Sun TV had shown Baasha a while back, it got a TRP of 40 (market research agency AC Nielsen's TAM data). "If a film gets half that rating on KTV it will be enough for the channel to follow Sun in second position (Sun has an estimated 60 per cent market share among Tamil language channels). Other stars like Kamal Haasan, Sarat Kumar, Satyaraj, and Arvind Swamy will also be showcased," Nair says.

While New Age will handle marketing, Sun will use its cable arm Sumanagali Cable Vision to distribute KTV. Sumanagali has a vice-like grip on cable connectivity in the state's major cities - Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Trichy.

Nair says plans were afoot for a while to launch the channel. The channel will start as free to air and the possibility of it becoming pay appears to be remote at the moment.

Other content on KTV will include film-based music programs like countdowns. Plans are also on the anvil to have game shows on the channel, the license for which will be acquired from abroad. There will also be live events like concerts.

Nair is not worried about the possibility of Sun TV and KTV eating into each other's audience since the former's content is diversified, while the latter's content is film-based. He also foresees KTV breaking even sooner rather than later.

Has B3 cranked up the power some are noticing improved signals from this bird. Have you noticed an improvment on any of the transponders? Let me hear about it if your signal has improved on B3. The Japan G.P had a feed via Pas 2 looking at my records this is the RTL feed same freq and settings as they used during the Aussie G.P. Thanks to Bill Richards for the details and his usual excellent screenshots.

Optus B1 160E 12671 V "TAB Radio" Encrypted Apid 663 Sid 1179, (This could be Audio for the RAW uplink TAB Feed that is also FTA on this transponder)

Asiasat 2 100.5E 3687 V "Islambad feeds", Sr 6110, Fec 3/4.(I have seen these often load as "service1" also check 10 mhz up from that Freq another also loading as "service1" is there often at the same time.)
Asiasat 2 100.5E 3705 V "Occasional EBU feeds" , Sr 6110, Fec 3/4.

NDS Develops First Interactive TV Service for CCTV, China's National Broadcaster

From satnewsasia.com

NDS Group, a News Corporation company and a provider of set-top boxes and interactive applications for digital TV, is helping develop the first digital interactive service for China Central Television (CCTV), China's national broadcaster.

The service will be soft launched at the Ninth National Games of China this November and will then be rolled out across China’s provincial cable networks.

Developed by NDS, the application uses open standards technology such as XML and follows the deployment of NDS's Open VideoGuard conditional access system across the digital cable platform established by China's Information Network Center (INC).

Xu Wei, Director General of CCTV Technical Administration, said China’s hosting of major sports events such as the football World Cup in 2002 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008 were ideal for offering interactive services to the Chinese television audience.

?It is only the beginning of a wide range of other interactive TV services using the latest digital technology, which we expect to deliver to our viewers in future,” said Xu.

Viewers will be able to select a window from four simultaneous sporting events and then choose from a number of additional options. These include access to a results service, medal count table, local and national news headlines and a message board linked to CCTV's Internet website.

CCTV is China’s national TV network. It currently has eight channels broadcasting 138 hours of programs daily.

NDS Group is a leading supplier of open conditional access software and interactive systems for the secure delivery of entertainment and information to television set-top boxes and personal computers

T S I C H A N N E L N E W S - Number 41/2001 October 14 2001 -

A weekly roundup of global TV news sponsored by Tele Satellite International

Editor: Branislav Pekic
Edited Apsattv.com Edition

A S I A

CANAL+TECHNOLOGIES AND ORBIT LAUNCH INTERACTIVE TV

Canal+ Technologies and The Orbit Satellite Television and Radio Network, the
leading satellite pay-television provider in the Middle East, North Africa and
the Levant, announced on October 8 that they have successfully deployed the
first digital set-top boxes broadcasting Orbit's services along with
interactive applications in the Middle East. The launch followed last winter's
licensing contracts between Orbit and Canal+ Technologies to supply its
interactive system MediaHighway and its conditional access system MediaGuard
and integrate them in Orbit’s new generation of digital set-top boxes. The
launch involves the initial deployment of a large quantity of Sagem digital
set-top boxes in 23 countries. Orbit subscribers will now be able to access
interactive applications such as navigation tools, channel lists and instant
programming information. Pay-per-view services are also scheduled to be
deployed in the first quarter of 2002, and additional closed-caption
applications (in French and Arabic) will be added later on that year.

AUSTRALIA

AUSTAR DEPLOYS OPENTV INTERACTIVE SOLUTIONS

Austar United Communications on October 8 launched the first commercial
interactive TV service in Australia, using OpenTV as a platform for its launch
of a full suite of interactive TV applications. These applications include an
electronic programme guide (EPG), information portal, news and weather
services, t-commerce abilities (branded as Quick Shop), t-mail and games
(supporting both free play and subscription models). These services utilise
both the broadcast and two-way back channel infrastructure to offer two-way
interactive TV services. These services are part of Austar's previously
announced plans to provide a range of communication and entertainment services
to its more than 300,000 set-top boxes in a service area of 2.1 million homes,
reaching over 1.2 million viewers. Austar United Communications is a leading
provider of integrated communications services: voice, video and data in
Australia and New Zealand. Austar United Communications is part of the

Qatar satellite TV station al-Jazeera last week became a timely addition to the
portfolio of channels offered by Australian pay-TV provider Optus Television.
An Optus spokeswoman told AAP the channel, owned by the Qatar Government and a
key broadcaster in the Arabic world, went live on Optus cable on October 1. But
she denied the channel’s introduction was opportunistic in light of its key
involvement in the current outbreak of terrorist-inspired warfare. “We began
negotiating to carry the channel more than six months ago,” she said.
Direct-to-home satellite services broadcast throughout the Asia Pacific region
also began carrying the full al-Jazeera channel last week. Ethnic pay-TV
content provider, World Media International (WMI), distributor of the station
in Australia, estimated about 20,000 households now had access to al-Jazeera
through cable and satellite.

SAUDI ARABIA

ART CONSIDERS LAUNCHING TV CHANNEL FOR WEST

Jeddah-based pay-TV group Arab Radio and Television is considering the launch
of an English-language channel aimed at opening the West’s eyes to Arab
culture, ART chairman Saleh Kamel announced at the MIPCOM television market. If
it gets off the ground, the channel would be based in London. Kamel said he
hopes it would be distributed on the United Kingdom’s British Sky Broadcasting
platform and EchoStar in the United States.

14/10/01

No update today taking a break.

13/10/01

Problems with Telstra and Ihug have caused problems for me trying to upload the site update to the server. It seems to be working fine. The host server is useing Telstra. The October issue of Satfacts arrived in my mailbox today, Items inside include more SDStv info, SPRSCS 2001 show report, Pas 8 bandscan, LBC package subscription form, SDStv equipment price information. Oh yeah and a photo of my dish is in there also. Has anyone tryed to find Pas 4 at 72E may be in use at the moment? also Spacenet 4 at 172E and how about Pas 5 at 155W? Let me know if you locate anything.

From my Emails & ICQ

From David Pemberton

ART A1 Jazerra on PAS 2 now only on 3836V.I would think that the old one on 3901H would be shut down after the transfer to 3836V.

Also on the FOX MUX 3992V Channel 3 that more often than not had a Nappa test card up FTA is now C.A.

SEOUL - AOL-Time Warner's CNN has become the first international cable program provider to charge cable system operators in Korea for its service.

Predictably, operators who have been long accustomed to free transmission have initially balked at the switch to formal, fee-based contracts. Inevitably too, CNN's previous blanket coverage of five million households has been dramatically reduced to 800,000 -- the number of households served by the operators that have signed contracts.

But Gregg Creevey, Turner Broadcasting senior VP for network distribution in Asia, insists that what "causes some short-term pain, is in our long-term interest" underlining that Korea is the only country in the region where CNN was not charging for transmission rights.

Mr. Creevey adds: "We can't sustain the investment in news gathering and providing the product that we do without having that dual revenue stream."

In the short-term, the main beneficiary of the new contracts has been CNN's main rival CNBC, which currently reached 1.5 million Korean households, up sharply from the 400,000 at the beginning of the year, according to Alan Hodges, VP of distribution for CNBC Asia.

Other international players in Korea include NHK, BBC TV and several channels operated by Star TV.

US and UK try to affect al-Jazeera news flow

From http://news.ft.com

In its war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, the US can rely on intelligence from satellites orbiting the earth. But there is one satellite America cannot control - the one that beams the al-Jazeera news channel across the Middle East from its studios in Qatar.

Despite the efforts of the US administration and of Tony Blair - who this week spoke on al-Jazeera in an effort to win over Arab minds - the information war is proving tougher than destroying airfields in Afghanistan. That was evident not only across the Gulf states this week but in Washington too.

Just as the 1991 Gulf war played to the strengths of CNN, the Atlanta-based television channel, this war has been the making of al-Jazeera. The bearded face of Taysir Alloumi, its Syrian-born correspondent in Kabul, has become a fixture in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera was chosen by Mr bin Laden to carry his videotaped call for a holy war as US bombs started to hit Kabul. It also had the only film of the bombing and its after-effects.

So effective was Mr bin Laden's broadcast that Condoleeza Rice, George W. Bush's national security adviser, tried to stop US networks from airing it repeatedly. After persuading the heads of the news divisions of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox to restrain themselves, she appealed to the editors of leading US newspapers not to publish full transcripts.

Ms Rice is reported to have held several frantic phone conversations last weekend with editors at The Washington Post. She urged them not to publish in the following day's paper large parts of a report by veteran Watergate reporter Bob Woodward that apparently contained important pieces of classified information leaked to him.

The stated reason for her interventions was the risk of a threat that Mr bin Laden might have been using the broadcast to transmit coded instructions to his followers to prepare for their next attack. But it seems improbable that "sleeper" units of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in the US would be sitting glued to ABC World News Tonight on the off-chance that they might get a signal from their leader.

The more likely reason was hinted at by Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman. "At best, Osama bin Laden's message is propaganda, calling on people to kill Americans. At worst, he could be issuing orders," he said, telling reporters about Ms Rice's conference calls.

With fear of another terrorist assault running high, the US administration could probably go further in limiting free speech. The response of the television executives this week shows that they understand the public mood. There is little enthusiasm for whining by media types at the best of times. And when Americans feel that their very existence is threatened, resistance is probably pointless.

It will be far harder for the US to influence the information flow outside its borders. That is a testament to how much things have changed in the Arab world since the 1991 Gulf war, when Saudi Arabia and Egypt were an integral part of the allied coalition and most of the region's media were firmly under their control.

A decade later, the Middle East has changed. Controls over print and broadcast media have been somewhat relaxed. So has the widespread tendency of editors to exercise self-censorship. As a result, after initial condemnations of the terrorist attacks on the US, much of the focus this week in the Arab press has been on the fate of Afghan civilians in the US-led strikes.

Editorials often start with hints of understanding of the US need for military action but end with warnings and apprehensiveness. "It is difficult for any Arab or Muslim country, however co-operative it is with the US, to mobilise people to support the war, as it is difficult for it to orchestrate internal media campaigns to speak of the benefits of US policy," noted the pan-Arab al-Hayat daily.

Such comments reflect the region's deep-rooted resentment towards US foreign policy and a certain readiness among ordinary Arabs to believe anyone - including the fundamentalist Taliban with which they share few values - rather than listen to Washington. "The reality today is that resentment towards the US and refusal of its policies run so deep, and are so widespread, that it is difficult for whatever it does to be acceptable," says Mohammad al-Sayed, deputy director of Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies.

The challenge faced by the US is partly the result of a late realisation of the relevance of Arab public opinion. For a long time after the Gulf war, the US assumed that its allies in the region - most of which are authoritarian regimes - could impose their views on their people.

The error of this approach has become apparent in recent years. The plight of Iraqis living under United Nations sanctions moved public opinion and forced rulers to distance themselves from US policy towards Iraq. The US message that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the effects of sanctions was largely ignored. "It's crazy that Iraq got its story out over the past 10 years. It has a lousy story to tell, yet everyone believes it," says a western diplomat.

The US now faces a further difficulty. The war on terrorism comes after a year in which Arab public opinion's image of Washington has been shaped by the Palestinian intifada, or uprising against Israeli occupation. Television pictures of rock-throwing Palestinian youths killed by sophisticated Israeli weaponry have fed anger towards US policy in the Middle East.

Negative perceptions of the US - and Mr bin Laden's attempt to exploit the Palestinian issue to justify his terror - have militated against the US in its efforts to explain the bombing of Taliban targets. "For the Arabs, the image of this war - that of a rich, strong superpower hitting a small country - doesn't lend itself to sympathy and creates a gap that cannot be bridged by propaganda," says Mr Said.

US officials say Washington now recognises that not enough effort has been exerted to get its message across. "We don't have enough Arabic speakers among senior officials to participate in talk shows and relatively few experts that will appear on stations [such as] al-Jazeera. They don't like to be put in that position," says an official.

Both the US and Britain are now stepping up their public diplomacy, with Washington planning to develop an advertising campaign and buy air time on Arab television stations as well as creating an Arabic radio service. US pressure is also likely to be applied on the Qatari government to rein in al-Jazeera and tone down its coverage.

Commentators in the Arab world, however, warn that targeting the satellite station could backfire. "If you fight al-Jazeera and produce another double standard in US policy, you say that the west is allowed a free press but Arabs are not," says Saad Djabbar, a Middle East political analyst who has often appeared on the channel. "Attacking al-Jazeera is attacking something Arab people cherish."

12/10/01

The message forum has not really worked how I hoped it would, in fact I found it has a major bug with how it lists new messages. It dosn't list the newest messages at the top like it should which is a pretty bad glitch. I have applied a patch we have to wait and see how it works in the meantime I have deleted all the messages from the message base and started from scratch don't worry it didn't remove the users database so no need to enter your details again.

Palapa C2 113E 3880 H "TVRI" has left, Still there in analogue on 3840 H.

NEWS

Bloomberg TV starts beaming off AsiaSat-3

From http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k1/oct/oct37.htm

Bloomberg Television has rented C-Band transponder space on Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co Ltd's powerful AsiaSat-3 satellite from October 1 2001. The Bloomberg channel, already transmitted in the Asian region on PanAmSat's PAS-2 satellite, is currently on a steady expansion spree in the region. The new platform will give Bloomberg's analogue unencrypted service additional power over India and Pakistan.

Presently Bloomberg's PAS-2 feed is uplinked from Napa in California while, the AsiaSat-3 service will be uplinked from Hong Kong. AsiaSat-3 carries most major regional broadcasters, including Star.

Star TV had talks with Bloomberg LP, the US-based financial news and information services company, for a joint venture to launch a business news channel in 2000. Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg LP chief executive officer had met Peter Mukerjea, chief executive of News Television India Ltd (NTIL), which operates the Star TV channels in India, last year in India, to identify synergies between the two companies in their operations in the region. The talks were only preliminary and the two had looked into modalities at the highest levels of decision-making.

Queried whether anything further had come of those talks Mukerjea said: "We met last year and that's it. There have been no further discussions since then."

Another possible partner is the Hindujas' promoted InCable Net, which plans to launch a shopping channel and a news channel in the coming months. IndusInd Entertainment Ltd COO Ashok Mansukhani also said that although there had been some talks with Bloomberg last year, nothing had materialised as yet. InCable also operates a number of city-specific cable TV channels under the umbrella of 'IN' brand.

If no one is tying up with Bloomberg what is all the activity about? Could it be that Bloomberg is planning to go it alone in India?

Bloomberg signed a contract with Shin Satellite to broadcast its international business and finance channel in India from 1 July 1, 2000. Bloomberg had utilised the C-band extended beam of Thaicom 3 to provide a free-of-charge trial service to India for six months as a market testing excercise.

It was in July that Bloomberg CEO Michel R Bloomberg had announced plans to get the channel into India though he refused to specify dates. The company already has offices in Delhi and Mumbai and is planning to introduce a television software facility in Mumbai shortly. Bloomberg is normally a subscription TV service with channels operating through cable TV packages.

Craigs comment, not sure what they mean by "Bloomberg's analogue unencrypted service" they are digital everywhere as far I am aware of.

Sun to launch Tamil movie channel on Oct 22

From http://www.financialexpress.com/fe20011011/con4.html

Sun Network is launching a Tamil movie-driven channel on October 22 to form a formidable bouquet led by Sun TV, even as rival Vijay TV has recently been re-launched with Star’s support.

The new channel, KTV, will be launched on October 22. It will be a digital, free-to-air channel and exploit Sun Network’s huge movie library.

While movies will be the backbone of the channel, it will have a programming mix of live events, film-based shows and mega serials.

New Age Entertainment will be the sole marketing agent for the channel. It has paid Sun Network a minimum guarantee, the amount of which could not be known. “We have a revenue-sharing arrangement with Sun,” said New Age Entertainment chief Suresh Iyer. He, however, did not disclose the details of the deal.

Unlike Sun TV which lets out time slots to producers, the programmes for KTV will be produced inhouse by Sun Network. The aim could be to own a library of shows and exploit revenues from it later. Sun TV currently has a huge movie library, but a very thin programming property. The network will also produce the live events.

Sun TV will pull out movies on weekday afternoons and put them on KTV. The movies on Saturdays and Sundays, however, will continue on Sun TV as they are big revenue earners for the channel. “We are shifting all other movies to KTV. The new channel will, at least, air three movies a day, including a blockbuster,” said Mr Iyer.

The new channel will also telecast live events, film-based shows and mega serials. It will start with a big launch event of local movie stars. Events with singers like Yesudas and Balasubramanium have been lined up. “The plan is to have an event every fortnight. We will have special interest events,” said Mr Iyer.

KTV will have a strip for innovative gameshows. The network is in talks with foreign media companies to get licensed shows of different types. “We will have game shows strategically targeted at diversified audiences,” Mr Iyer said.

Niche programming will also be a part of the menu offered by the channel. New serials will be produced inhouse, though the channel will not be driven by soap operas. While Sun TV will run on the strength of the soaps, KTV will attract audiences who are watching other Tamil language channels like Vijay TV.

Media analysts said the launch of KTV would make Sun Network a formidable player and make the task of the nearest rival channel still tougher. “Sun network can now use KTV as a flanking strategy to stave off any competition to its main channel. In fact, it has the potential of being a strong second channel. Vijay TV could slide down,” an analyst said.

Craigs comment, This one is likely to be on NSS at 57E with the other Sun Channels

Sun Network flexes muscles; to launch KTV channel on October 22

From http://www.agencyfaqs.com/www1/news/stories/2001/10/11/3368.html

A recent full-page colour ad in a leading national daily has made media watchers sit up and take notice. To begin with, a full-page ad in these times of doom and gloom itself is amazing, but even more surprising is the news it carries  that of the launch of a new TV channel.

But is there place for more? “We want to reestablish our leadership and take the No 1 and No 2 slots. The others can decide where they want to be after that. In fact, we had been thinking in terms of another entertainment channel in Tamil for quite some time because we are not able to do justice to entertainment as a genre on Sun TV. KTV has been in the pipeline for some months now,’’ clarifies W Hansraj Saxena, vice-president, programming, Sun TV.

However, people close to channel observe that the launch of KTV has been speeded up due to the hoopla raised by Vijay TV during its relaunch as part of the STAR Network. Sources, who have observed recent events in Chennai closely, say as Vijay TV threw up its trump card with the launch its new serial Marumagal (meaning daughter-in-law) starring famous cine actor Khushboo, Sun TV preponed the launch of KTV.

Not surprising. In fact, Vijay TV went to the extent of roping in Eventus, the event management division of Fountainhead advertising agency, to create excitement around Marumagal, which is being seen as the key driver for the channel’s ratings now. The whole idea behind Marumagal’s launch was backed by the channel’s internal research that showed 80 per cent of women make it a point to visit temples on Fridays in the south. The agency went into temples and reached out to women by handing out Kumkum (bindis, a very common practice among homes in the south) along with a card asking them to welcome the new bride into their homes. Apart from this, the channel touched base with women at department stores, exhibitions and theatres across six cities in Tamil Nadu. The agency plans to take out a massive float that will be supported by a door-to-door campaign aimed at encouraging trial viewership. The agency’s brief was to get ‘confirmed viewership’ of at least 50,000.

HTA, meanwhile, has bagged the advertising account for KTV. But there was no pitch for this account. “We had worked with Sun on a project earlier and this helped us bag this account. KTV was initially being conceived as a movie channel, but we prevailed upon the client to consider a broader platform for it. Hence it is being positioned as an entertainment-cum-movie channel,” said U Jayraj Rau, vice-president and client services director, HTA, Chennai. The creative for the launch campaign revolves around masks. “Every person interested in movies, at some point, likes to think of himself/herself as a movie star, and we have used ordinary people wearing masks resembling top stars. We would be distributing these masks among people to generate interest in the channel,” he added.

Indeed. The Sun Network will not cut corners in publicising the launch of KTV. According to Saxena of Sun TV, the launch budget is a mind-boggling Rs 7 crore. The group is leaning heavily on the print media for ‘immediacy’. It hopes to come out with six more full-page ads in leading dailies such as Dina Malar, Dina Thanthi etc and hopes to leverage the network’s bouquet of channels to drive home the message. It plans to use the outdoor media in a big way and has already booked 75 prominent hoarding across Chennai. There are also plans to have giant-sized cutouts to attract attention. Such activities will be spread across seven major cities in Tamil Nadu. Local dailies, that have sizeable Tamil readership in Bangalore and Hyderabad, as well as magazines, such as Kumudam and Ananda Vigadan, would be brought in at a later stage.

Media circles in Chennai have been working overtime trying to crack the letter ‘K’ in KTV channel. “Some say K means Kalanithi Maran; others believe it could mean Kaliangar Karunanidhi; then there are those who say it stands for Kollywood. But it means no such thing. HTA coined a term ‘Kondattam’ (which roughly means celebrations) to describe the character of the channel. But the channel is simply KTV,” says Saxena of Sun TV, who happens to be a close aide of Kalanithi Maran.

KTV would be inaugurated with blockbuster Tamil movies such as Citizen, Paariyappa and Jeans. Plans have also been firmed up to air English movies dubbed in Tamil such as Terminator II, Total Recall, Armor of Gods etc. The channel has already bagged the rights to dub these movies in Tamil and telecast them.

Not surprising as Sun TV has the largest collection of movie titles in its library  about 2,400 films, though according to sources, the real number is pegged at over 6,000 titles. Apart from this, the network has also announced its decision to get into film production. “We control 98 per cent of the films released in the market and we have tied up to get the latest blockbusters for the next four years as well,’’ says Saxena. To begin with KTV will screen one movie every day from Monday through Friday, and another four movies over the weekend. The channel, once it finds its feet, would move on to other platforms such as live shows, chat shows and events.

11/10/01

Sorry not much to report today very little news also. A few more Tarbs details in case you want to contact them.

If you can see the satellite take a look at 66deg E 4055 R 27500 3/4 there
is a middle east feed running in the evenings on the feed ch..

Zapara

From the Dish

Thaicom 3 78.5E 3554 V "ATN Music" was replaced by a test card.

LMI 1 75E 3433 H "TV Lanka test and the test card" is FTA again.

NEWS

B4U MOVIES LAUNCH

From http://www.scatindia.com/b4u.htm

A new Hindi Movie Channel is set to treat Indian viewers.
Get Ready For A 3 Month, Free-To-Air Treat !

B4U launched its Music Channel in May 2000. However, Indian viewers then held their breath for a treat from the country's largest library of Hindi movies. Expectation were that B4U would launch a movie channel shortly thereafter. In June, B4U even put out a pre launch campaign promising to launch B4U "The Premium Digital Movie Channel" in July 2000.

At the launch function the press was taken aback with the sudden declaration that the second channel launch was B4U "The Digital Entertainment Channel". This was despite the fact that Bharat Shah with a huge library of premium Hindi Movies, had joined the Board of Directors. Industry analysts believe that B4U's last minute decision to switch to a General Entertainment Channel rather than a movie channel was based on hard arithmetic by the B4U board. Media analysts speculated, that the B4U board felt that it would be more profitable to sell their movie rights to other channels for special screening during festive events, rather than to try and recover the huge premiums for blockbuster movies, through regular ads.

A general Entertainment channel, it was felt, could be more feasibly supported through advertisements.

THUMBS DOWN FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT CHANNEL

However, a year down the line, B4U Entertainment has not been able to make its mark. The entertainment field a year ago was addressed by 2 fierce competitors - Zee TV and SET. Star came in a distant 3rd. However, a year later the pecking order has been radically shuffled with Star Plus taking the top spot. Sahara TV too has entered the fray.

CHANNELS GOING PAY:

Another important development over the past one year has been the migration of most channels from a Free-to-Air basis to pay channels. Sony and Zee have taken the plunge. It would therefore seems appropriate for even the B4U entertainment channel to go pay. However, B4U entertainment has fared poorly and the probability of viewers paying to continue receiving the channel seemed bleak.

MUSIC BETTER THAN ENTERTAINMENT ?

Media analysis reckon that B4U Music; which is in fact a lower budget channel than B4U digital entertainment; is faring well. Infact that some even speculate that revenues from B4U Music actually subsidised B4U entertainment !

The B4U board has probably decided to refocus its efforts on their prime strength ... the possession of what is probably India's largest collection of block buster movies. As a result, the B4U digital entertainment channel is being retired. Come October, the channel will be replaced by "B4U Movies".

B4U MOVIES LAUCHED

At the time of writing this article, late September, hectic activities are on at the B4U headquarters to launch the B4U movie channel on 2nd October 2001. This will coincide with Gandhi Jayanti, & just before the Dasera & Divali festive season. B4U movies is being launched as a digitally compressed channel, broadcast from PAS 10, the same satellite as B4U digital entertainment. The Transmission parameters will also be the same.

FREE-TO-AIR TREAT:

B4U Digital Movies will initially be launched as a Free-to-Air Channel. The plans are that on 2nd October 2001, the day of its launch, the channel will be digitally compressed but Free-to-Air. By the end of October the transmission will be encrypted so that it can be viewed only on B4U's IRDs. B4U is likely to deploy NagraVision encryption. Some of the existing B4U digital boxes in the field have a blank CI slot. These will only need to be fitted with a NagraVision CI module.

The others digital receivers that do not have any CI slot, will probably be re-deployed as Free-to-Air digital receivers for the B4U Music channel. New digital IRDs, with built in NagraVision decoders, will be distributed to networks, which decide to subscribe to B4U digital movies. A generous, 3 months span, from October to December 2001 has been kept aside for this transition. During this transition period B4U movies will be received by networks free-of-cost.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES:

A prime issue, fore most on every cable network's agenda is the asking price of any pay channel. Whilst a specific price is unavailable and probably not yet decided, we speculate that the channel would be priced at approximately Rs. 6 per channel per month to the cable networks.

Initially, B4U movies, like any other newly launched pay channel will try to maximise the number of eye-balls per decoder. Hence, initially efforts will probably be focused on the larger towns and cities. However, it is reliably learnt that B4U wants to reach not only urban viewers but also those in semi-rural and rural areas. Hence, from January 2002, when the channel goes pay, a rural package starting at just 300 subscribers is likely to be offered, it is reliably learnt.

Today, the metro cities and TRP centers are generally controlled by MSOs. Both the existing B4U channels, occupy premium carriage positions with most MOS through out the country. Hence given a reasonably attractive programme package. B4U movies should not find it difficult to grab viewer eye-balls.

THE CONTENT:

Movies are easily the most expensive content on television. It is almost impossible to recover the cost of block buster movies from the highly fragmented advertisement market. More than 80 channel vie for the advertiser's purse.

Even established titans such as Star, Sony and Zee only occasionally screen blockbuster movies, usually on festive occasions. It would therefore seems unreasonable for B4U to play out every prime movie in its stable, during the first year. The B4U movie channel will be carrying a prime movie each week and a blockbuster once a month. 5 movies will be offered daily to its viewers. The time between movies will carry fillers such as takes off actual movie shooting in progress at Bollywood studios .

B4U Movies also plan to introduce some form of viewer interactivity. Viewers would probably be invited to select block buster movies for screening through their website, email and letters, it is reliably learnt.

THE FUTURE:

The current industry trend is to shift all Free-to-Air channels to a pay platform. However, no music channel has to date, migrated to a pay service. Sources within the company indicate that the B4U Music channel may consider this option. However, B4U Music currently has commitments to its advertisers to remain free-to-air atleast till mid 2002. It may review the option to shift to a pay service only in October 2002 or early 2003.

B4U is also considering building up its bouquet, by distributing other, channels. However, no specific in-roads seem to have been made, in this regard.

CONCLUSION:

The Indian industry expects B4U Movies to provide prime Hindi Movie Entertainment. Infact, B4U movies would be the Indian equivalent of HBO-1 the prime HBO channel in the US. Though B4U certainly has the repertoire of titles, commercial compulsion may dictate that it provides block busters as an occasional treat rather than a routine offering.

10/10/01

Sorry about the late and small update today, have been making the most of the extra hour of daylight and have been adjusting my dish. The chatroom worked really well last night the Tarbs discussion was Interesting. I found all these email adresses for Tarbs. Does anyone know there FAX number? Those emails addresses may come in handy if you have to contact them for any reason.

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.,  October 9, 2001  Conexant Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNXT) a worldwide leader in semiconductor system solutions for communications applications, today introduced the industry's first single-chip dual-stream demodulator for satellite receiver systems. The CX24130 device is ideal for applications such as personal video recorders (PVRs) that process dual incoming video streams to simultaneously play and record two different television programs. Other applications include digital video broadcasting/digital satellite system (DVB/DSS) set-top and PC receivers, and residential gateways.

The latest in Conexant's family of set-top box solutions, the CX24130 replaces two 100-pin demodulators with one 80-pin IC, allowing system designers to significantly reduce product size and component requirements. Optimized for use with Conexant's CX24108 radio frequency (RF) satellite tuner ICs, the CX24130 device cuts board space by approximately 35 percent and external component costs by about 15 percent. The CX24130 also provides a seamless interface to Conexant's CX22492 interactive MPEG-2 audio/video decoder for a complete direct broadcast satellite (DBS) PVR system solution.

"Despite their popularity among early adopters, PVR products will have difficulty reaching critical mass until system costs come down," said Dan Marotta, senior vice president and general manager for Conexant's Digital Infotainment Division. "Conexant's dual-stream demodulator will significantly reduce the size and cost of PVR systems and other next-generation satellite receiver products, while offering an ideal platform for future solutions that incorporate additional system-on-a-chip functionality from Conexant's comprehensive set-top-box technology portfolio."

A variety of advanced demodulator features enhance overall system performance, including automatic correction for external quadrature gain/phase imbalances and DC offsets, and automatic gain control (AGC) to compensate for input signal level variations. A robust carrier-tracking loop corrects for frequency offsets due to inexpensive low noise block down-converters (LNBs), and a unique automatic acquisition algorithm searches and acquires the carrier during initial acquisition, and performs a smart search to reacquire the carrier during fade conditions. In addition, the CX24130 features integrated signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and bit-error-rate (BER) monitors that facilitate channel-performance measurements.

Conexant provides a complete reference design package that allows designers to rapidly bring innovative new products to market. The CX24130 demodulator is manufactured using proven 0.18-micron CMOS process technology, and is packaged in an 80-pin quad flat pack (QFP). The device is sampling now and is scheduled to begin volume production this quarter.

Craigs comment I wonder when we can expect IRDS with this chip.

SABe TV serves legal notice on Turner International

From http://www.financialexpress.com/fe20011010/efetop2.html

SABe TV has served a legal notice on Turner International India on charges of non performance and breach of confidentiality of the agreement. The company had appointed Turner to distribute its Hindi entertainment channel in the country for a period of two years. Sources said the notice was issued on Saturday. When contacted, Sri Adhikari Brothers Television Network vice chairman and managing director Markand Adhikari confirmed that the company had served legal notice to Turner.

?We appointed them to distribute our channel after they approached us. We wanted to be associated with a multinational company, which had international expertise and reputation. But they failed to deliver and their performance was totally unexpected. The distribution team of Turner has proved totally inefficient and non cooperative, despite charging a heavy fee from us,” Mr Adhikari said.

Turner, sources close to the deal said, they were to be paid Rs 15 lakh every month. The distribution agreement, which was entered into last year, was for a period of two years. It was a monthly payment contract. SABe TV, however, had not paid Turner for six months, as reported first in The Financial Express.

SABe TV has accused Turner of not making proper efforts to distribute the channel. The company has asked for an explanation from Turner for not seeding the desired number of decoder boxes which, they feel, would have further enhanced the already growing viewership of the Hindi entertainment channel.

Al-Jazeera scores media points with Osama footage

From http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/101001/detNAT04.asp

EVER SINCE Al-Jazeera procured exclusive footage of Osama bin Laden's pre-recorded message to the world, the Qatar-based satellite channel has shot to international fame. Even its smudgy videotape showing flashes of light over Kabul on a flickering green screen were among the most "exciting" visuals.

News channels across the world aired both sets of pictures, leading to a bit of a spat among networks. Apparently, Al Jazeera had granted CNN an exclusive six-hour window for any pictures taken off its air, including the Bin Laden videotape. But within minutes, Fox and NBC were showing them as well.

Initially CNN fumed, but in its latest statement, a CNN spokesperson says magnanimously, "CNN has a standard affiliate agreement with Al Jazeera... CNN's concern at this time is to do our best in covering this war, and, as always, we want to ensure that Americans and others worldwide are well informed. Given the magnitude of the events on the evening of Sunday 7 October, we do not plan to enforce our exclusivity."

As of now, the BBC claims it is involved in "confidential negotiations with the channel." Said a spokesperson, "We cannot disclose details, but BBC will certainly be using material shown on Al Jazeera in future."

Since Al Jazeera is the only channel with a live link to Kabul, its current in-demand status is not surprising. Ever since it was started in 1996 by the liberal Qatar Amir, Sheik Hamad bin-Khalifa al-Thani, the 24-hour Al Jazeera has emerged as Qatar's most important export after oil and gas. It is perhaps the only Arab channel that doesn't hesitate to tackle provocative issues like polygamy, corruption and fundamentalism. It has even aired interviews with Israeli leaders. Unsurprisingly, Al Jazeera has ruffled many feathers.

According to one view, it was the biased coverage of the Gulf War by the Western media that spurred the growth of Arab satellite channels, including Al Jazeera.

When Saddam Hussein called on Arabs to rise against their rulers during operation Desert Fox in 1998, he delivered his speech over Al Jazeera. And now, Osama has chosen the same channel to send his message to the world. Al Jazeera says it doesn't know how Bin Laden's statements reach them. There are several different stories of how his most recent message got to the network - including one where it was supposed to have been deposited from a speeding car!

Al Jazeera may be known a bit patronisingly as the CNN of the Arab world, but for now, it has managed to steal the thunder from all the international networks put together.

9/10/01

Live chat in the chatroom 8.30pm Syd time onwards tonight, Also I am in there from 9pm NZ. Activitty on B1, with TVNZ Testcard leaving replaced by 2 services "TV One and TV2" Lets hope these have officially arrived and stay truely FTA. Note they are on NZ Beam. But you never know though where the signals may leak to. Anybody there on Norfolk Island? Sorry not much in the NEWS section for today.

Junior telecommunications company Soul Pattinson Telecommunications Group (SOT) today announced it had been selected to partner with New Skies Networks to deliver the ABC's new Asia Pacific Television service.

The ABC has entered into a five year contract with Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade to establish an Australian television and multi media service delivered by satellite to the Asia Pacific region. The service will provide a high quality programming mix, including extensive news and current affairs reports, education and lifestyle programs, an innovative cross media strategy and multi channelling capacity.

New Skies Networks Pty Ltd (NSN) has been issued a Letter of Intent to proceed to a contract from the ABC to provide major Distribution, Presentation and Satellite Uplink services for the ABC's satellite based Asia Pacific television service.

NSN has selected SPT as its key partner to deliver the service. NSN and SPT signed a Strategic Alliance Agreement in March of this year and this successful partnership is testimony to the effectiveness of that alliance.

SPT will provide the Television Distribution and Presentation services to compile and broadcast two television channels initially. These two program streams will be supplied to NSN who will provide the uplink facility to the regional satellite.

SPT will also carry the ABC overseas radio service for Radio Australia, JJJ and the Parliamentary News Network for uplink to the satellite.

In addition to the use of its broadband Network, SPT will be responsible for providing various presentation facilities in compilation of the television channels including program and commercial scheduling and placement, management of acceptance and inclusion of content, and monitoring and control of the quality of the broadcast audio and video.

The Chairman of SPT, Mr Rob Millner, commented that, "This opportunity is further testimony to the unique business plan adopted by SPT. Our expertise in the converging worlds of telecommunications and digital media is seeing new business opportunities develop such as this contract with the ABC which will result in a significant increase in revenue to SPT over the life of the contract. SPT will commence distribution of digital television pictures for NBN Television late this year and despite our Sydney to Brisbane broadband Network not being completed until January of this year, our early business success has resulted in profitable trading from April".

Craigs comment 2 channels? hmmm interesting.

Austar launches iTV service to 300,000 homes

From http://www.austarunited.com.au/press.asp?action=show&record=1

PRESS RELEASE

9 Oct 2001

Digital interactive television comes first to regional Australia
Austar Communications announced today that it had become Australia’s first digital interactive television broadcaster with a range of iTV services available to more than 300,000 of its customers in regional Australia.

Senator Richard Alston launched the service by sending one of Australia’s first T-Mails from Bendigo to Austar’s Chief Executive John Porter.

?Interactive Television (iTV) adds a whole new dimension to television, offering advanced features and services which entertain, inform and help customers communicate,” said John Porter.

?Not since the introduction of colour will viewers have experienced such a transformation of the television set. This revolutionises what you can do with the TV, but because it is television it is familiar and easy to use.

*ustar has been planning for this launch for several years. We have a fully digital service with a significant population of set top boxes already deployed, as a result we do not face the cost of converting boxes which is an issue for other pay operators or deploying boxes which will confront free to air operators.

?We have also been lucky to have worked with many excellent partners including:

- OpenTV who designed our middleware;
- Massive, Australia’s preeminent iTV application developer;
- Oracle who designed and built the platform;
- ADB who made our set top boxes; and
- content partners including The Weather Channel, The Lifestyle Channel, Channel V, TVSN, Nickelodeon and Satellite Music Australia.

"Most of these services come free to our customers with their Austar TV,” said Mr Porter. “Revenue will come from subscription services such as T-Mail and some games and from advertising and shopping.

?However, the main benefit will be in differentiating Austar from other entertainment and communications service providers. This will increase take up and improve retention of the Austar TV service,” Mr Porter commented.

ITV services launched today include T-Mail (e-mail on your television), Quick Shop (shopping opportunities related to programming on The LifeStyle Channel), a sophisticated electronic programme guide, games, interactive advertising and channel enhancements on The Weather Channel and Channel V. Further services to be launched in the coming weeks include I-Daily (a news and information service), another shopping service, an application for Nickelodeon and an improved Weather Channel application.

Most services are immediately available at no cost to more than 300,000 customers with Omega and ST20 set top boxes. Some services require the purchase of easily obtainable equipment, such as an infra red key board for T-Mail.

?The services we are launching today are just the beginning. The possibilities are endless, limited only by our determination that services will be easy to use, fun and informative,” Mr Porter concluded.

Telstra throws a lifeline to Austar

From http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,3004231%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

STRANGE things happen in the pay TV industry, and last week's decision by Telstra to bail out regional pay TV group Austar seems to be one of the most unlikely in a long time.

Telstra agreed to pick up the $NZ150 million ($122.5 million) Austar was committed to pay to help fund the two companies' New Zealand broadband joint venture.

The decision, in which Telstra gains the right to buy out Austar's stake, has given Austar a boost as it seeks to renegotiate its $400 million debt facility.

But as the 50 per cent owner of dominant pay TV group Foxtel, one would have thought Telstra would have preferred Austar to collapse so it could pick up its assets at a bargain price.

A combined Foxtel-Austar would then give it the negotiating power, in terms of subscriber numbers, that it would need to renegotiate the $US-denominated Hollywood programming contracts that keep it in the red.

But it turns out the hedging that was once available on those contracts has changed, which is likely to lead to higher costs and therefore greater losses at Foxtel this year.

UBS Warburg last week estimated this year's losses to extend to $102 million compared with last year's $62 million.

Added to that, Austar's viability also helps Fox Sports, a company equally owned by News Limited (publisher of The Australian) and Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd.

News and PBL believe Fox Sports to be a bargaining chip in their continuing negotiations with Telstra to equalise the ownership of Foxtel (Foxtel is 50 per cent owned by Telstra and 25 per cent each by News and PBL).

But with Fox Sports gaining 35 per cent of its revenue from Austar, it remains in a strong position as long as the regional pay TV company survives.

Telstra already seems to have attempted to weaken Fox Sports by its decision to secure the AFL pay TV rights, and keep it within Foxtel as opposed to Fox Sports.

That has led analysts to question whether Foxtel might bid in the future for other sports, further weakening the position of Fox Sports.

If that occurred, the bargaining chip PBL and News once proffered would be of much less value.

But there's also the opinion that Telstra's decision secures its right to Austar's New Zealand stake in the event of its collapse.

That ensures Telstra can control the business and wipes out the chance of a rival picking up the Austar equity and creating shareholder instability.

Telstra's move, criticised by telco analysts for the lack of detail, was a huge boost for Austar's share price, which has wallowed as low as 15c.

It rose 69 per cent on the day it was announced, but recent problems at its US parent, UnitedGlobalCom, have seen much of those gains dissipate.

Shares in UnitedGlobalCom, which owns about 81 per cent of Austar, have continued to fall, with a drop of 40 per cent on Thursday night taking the price to US78c compared to its year high of $US16.96.

That affected Austar's shares on Friday, which fell 2c to 24c.

UnitedGlobalCom is saddled with huge debts that also require renegotiation, but some believe the shares to have been oversold, given that the US media company Liberty Media has become its major shareholder.

Austar has until the end of December to roll over the $400 million facility, and, if it cannot do so, UnitedGlobalCom is committed to pay back the debt.

Analysts have previously speculated that if UnitedGlobalCom could not meet the payment, Austar would be forced to sell assets.
The company said last week it had sufficient funds to break even in 2004 now that it no longer has the NZ commitment.
But it's a still loss-making company seeking to trim costs.

The Telstra deal keeps Austar afloat in the short term, but its long-term future is not as certain.
Or maybe it's the case that Telstra knows the Austar debt is likely to be refinanced as the company continues to restructure itself.

The market has long been expecting a pay TV industry shake-out.
The only thing certain is the market is likely to be kept waiting.

Boeing to Build Third Superbird Satellite for Japan

From satnewsasia.com

Space Communications Corporation (SCC), Japan’s second largest satellite communications services company, has signed a contract with Boeing Satellite Systems (BSS) for the acquisition of a Boeing 601 communications satellite.

The satellite will be designated Superbird 6 and is scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2003. Superbird 6, slated for an orbital slot at 158.0 degrees East longitude, will provide business telecommunication services using a “Japan Beam” and a steerable beam. The satellite will have a payload of 23 active Ku-band transponders and four Ka-band transponders.

With the contract for Superbird 6, Boeing will have built three of five Superbirds. Superbird C was launched in July 1997 and Superbird D in February 2000.

BSS said these high-performance communications satellites, along with Superbird 6, have established a strong continued relationship with SCC.

SCC President Teruhiko Ena said he expected BSS to provide a high quality and reliable satellite again on time, and also hoped that its partnership with Boeing can be strengthened in various fields.

SCC was established in 1985 by Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and other Mitsubishi Group Companies.

SCC now operates four communications satellites named Superbird A, B2, C, and D at four orbital slots.

Boeing is the world's leading manufacturer of commercial communications satellites and a major provider of space systems, satellites and payloads for national defense, science and environmental applications.

8/10/01

What do we have for today, B3 Mediasat on Msatt 7 has a new channel unconfirmed yet but possibly "TZU CHI" Taiwanese/Chinese. B1 in the Saturn Mux "S01" was testing with TV3 FTA this afternoon in place of Tv1. Some Measat 2 Cband activity, check there see if you find anything. Other happenings, Changes to B3 Zee TV mux, "Zee music and Zee Punjabi" to dissapear soon.

FTV news Asia.....FTV is scheduled to encrypt ftv on Asiasat 2 starting November 1, 2001....all cable operators, hotels, appartments...please contact ftv at asia@ftv.com if you want to get more information how to receive ftv after november 1..".

"T S I C H A N N E L N E W S - Number 40/2001 October 7 2001 -

A weekly roundup of global TV news sponsored by Tele Satellite International

Edited Apsattv.com Edition

Editor: Branislav Pekic

A S I A

AFGHANISTAN

TALEBANS START SATELLITE TV MONITORING

According to a report by Pakistani newspaper Jang, the Taleban
administration has installed modern satellite dishes in their Kandahar
and Kabul offices for television monitoring so as to keep abreast of the
international media’s point of view on Afghanistan. Jang’s special
central reporting unit has learnt from sources close to the high-level
Pakistani delegation that visited Afghanistan that the Taleban foreign
minister, Wakeel Ahmad Mutawakkil, who is thought to be a moderate in
the Taleban, had proposed starting television monitoring. Worth noting
is that in Afghanistan there is a ban on possessing TV sets and watching
television, and installing a satellite dish is a crime.

AUSTRALIA

AUSTAR RESCUES TVSN

Regional pay-TV operator Austar has come to the rescue of shopping
channel operator TVSN. Austar, which has a majority shareholding in
TVSN, has agreed to meet its cash requirements up to A$3 million through
to the first quarter of 2002 when it is scheduled to reach breakeven.
Austar got its own funding boost this week after it was relieved of its
obligation to raise A$150 million when Telstra agreed to take over the
funding of MSO TelstraSaturn.

INDIA

MOVIE CHANNEL RELAUNCHES

Movie channel Bollywood For You has relaunched its premium B4U
Entertainment channel as B4U Movies. The channel is currently being
offered on a free trial before encryption in November. It will cost
Indian subscribers about Rs6.5 a month.

JAPAN

J-COM TO OFFER DIGITAL SATELLITE SERVICE

Jupiter Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (J-COM), Japan’s largest multiple
systems operator (MSO) and the biggest broadband and cable service in
Japan, is hoping to enlarge its subscriber base by offering satellite
digital broadcasting services. This service, which was launched in
August, allows its customers to receive digital broadcasting content
from NHKincluding high-definition programming (HDTV) -- as well as
digital content from all of Japan’s ‘Big 5’ commercial broadcasters. The
J-COM tiered package also includes both data and radio broadcast
offerings. In addition, two premium movie networks, WOWOW and Star
Channel, are available as fee-based digital subscriber options.
According to the Ministry, cable TV penetration now exceeds 39% of
Japan’s 47.42 million households. The commercial broadcasters’
nationwide networks reach over 95% of all households, while NHK says 99%
of all households receive its public channels. Digital terrestrial
broadcasting will begin in Japan’s three largest cities, Tokyo, Osaka
and Nagoya, in 2003. All will continue to offer analogue services until
2007, by which time, according to their agreement with the Ministry of
Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, digital
services will be available nationwide. J-COM is jointly owned by
Sumitomo Corp., Liberty Media Group, Microsoft Corp., Toshiba Corp., and
Itochu Corp.

QATAR

WASHINGTON PUTS PRESSURE ON AL-JAZEERA

Washington has asked Qatar to rein in the influential and editorially
independent Arabic al-Jazeera television station, which gives airtime to
anti-American opinions. The emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Khalifa
al-Thani, confirmed after a meeting with US Secretary of State Colin
Powell in Washington that he had been asked to exert influence on the
Qatari-based channel, which can be received almost worldwide.
Al-Jazeera’s apparent independence in a region where much of the media
is state-run has transformed it into the most popular station in the
Middle East. Al-Jazeera was set up in 1996 by the new Emir of Qatar,
Shaykh Hamad Bin-Khalifah Al Thani and for the last five years, the
Qatari Emir has spent $140 million subsidising Al-Jazeera.
According to unofficial estimates, Al-Jazeera is the top Arabic-language
TV channel in the Middle East. The station claims to have 35 million
viewers, but this cannot be verified as some Arab countries do not carry
out official viewer surveys. It broadcasts financial, cultural,
religious and sports programmes, in addition to its continuous news
coverage to viewers from its headquarters in Doha. The channel is
received on: Arabsat 2A, 26 east and Arabsat 3A, 26 east (pan-Arab),
Nilesat 101, 7 west (Egypt), Amos 1, 4 west (Israel), PanAmSat PAS 2,
169 east and PAS 9, 58 west (Americas), EchoStar 1, 148 west and
EchoStar 3, 61.5 west (Americas), Telstar 5, 97 west (Americas),
Eurobird, 28.5 east (Sky Digital - UK), Eutelsat W4, 36 east (Europe),
Hot Bird 3, 13 east (Europe).
Internet - http://www.aljazeera.net

SINGAPORE

CHANNEL NEWSASIA AHEAD OF TARGET

Channel NewsAsia is now available in about 12 million homes in 15
countries in Asia. Shaun Seow, the CEO of MediaCorp News, which runs the
channels, notes that the network had hit the 12 million market two years
earlier than planned. ‘The reach we have achieved so far is way ahead of
our forecasts,’ Seow said. ‘This shows that there is a strong demand in
the region for news coverage with an Asian focus.’ Channel NewsAsia was
launched in March 1999 in Singapore and last year it launched an
international feed for Asia. Currently the channel is available in such
territories as Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,
South Korea, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.

SOUTH KOREA

BITSTREAM AND NDS GET SKYLIFE CONTRACT

Bitstream Inc. and NDS Group plc announced on October 2 that Bitstream
and NDS have entered into a long-term, large volume contract to license
Bitstream's Korean stroke-based font for use in NDS' digital
broadcasting systems deployed by SkyLife in Korea. SkyLife is the first
and exclusive satellite broadcaster in Korea, and they forecast to reach
3 million pay-TV subscribers by 2005. The first set-top box vendors have
been selected by SkyLife, and integration of Bitstream fonts and NDS
middleware and conditional access systems is ongoing. Humax Co. Ltd.,
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Hyundai Digital Technology Co. Ltd.
are all committed to delivery of digital set-top boxes to SkyLife by
year end 2001. NDS, a News Corporation company, and the leading provider
of conditional access systems and interactive applications for digital
TV, was selected as the systems integration consultant to launch
SkyLife. NDS will supply the Open VideoGuard conditional access system,
NDS Core middleware, StreamServer for the management control of the
digital headend, and provide consultancy for set-top box integration.
NDS and SkyLife will work with Korean set-top box manufacturers to
incorporate Bitstream's Korean stroke-based font into their solutions.
NDS licensed Font Fusion from Bitstream to use as NDS' font rendering
technology for rendering high-quality Korean characters on the fly.
Internet - http://www.bitstream.com

7/10/01

It's rained here all weekend so no work done on my dish. We switched to daylight savings time from today +1hr not sure if Australia has changed over yet. So the time difference may only be 1 hour at the moment. Not much activity reported today everyone must be watching the race.

SpeedCast Ltd., a satellite broadband enabler based in Hong Kong, announced several new partnerships with broadband partners, further extending the reach of its SpeedCast Broadband service offering. SpeedCast Broadband uses the AsiaSat 3S satellite at 105.5 degrees East.

In addition to SpeedCast's existing network of partners across Asia and the Middle East, SpeedCast has recently formed strategic alliances with the following partners throughout the region:

the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT),
Abdullah Al Fouad company from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Agni Ltd. of Bangladesh,
Almoayed Telecom/AmNet from Bahrain,
Cynex from India,
Commsat.net of Indonesia,
DotCom of Bangladesh,
E-Biz Maldives from the Maldives,
Globe Net from Laos,
Mega Internet Services from India,
Pan Asian from Hong Kong,
Pasifik Satelit Nusantara from Indonesia,
Newcastle Direct from Australia and
Telecom Mongolia from Mongolia.

SpeedCast Broadband is offering four service plans based on usage and consumption: Galaxy, Galaxy+, Infinity and Pre-Paid services. Each service offering includes a high speed Internet connection up to 1.5 Mbps via satellite, and access to video and other branded content.

6/10/01

Fairly quiet today most are probably watching the Bathurst race Feed. TVNZ TV1 is running FTA on "Saturn" on B1 see below for details not that you are likely to get it in Australia.

From my Emails & ICQ

From John Harrison 6/10/01 (and many others)

B1 12385 V "Bathurst Feed" Sr 6111 Fec 3/4 Vpid 308 Apid 256

From P Eade (NZ)

For a few days now Saturn (B1) "S01" 12483v 22500 3/4 A650 V512 P138 has been showing NZ TV1 FTA.
If it's still there on Sunday and we can't find the feed at least us Kiwis might be able to watch Bathurst with stereo sound!

Intelsat 902 is now at 62E, might be worth checking Cband, although officially only KU band has switched on might be worth a look the Ku beams have analog signals you never know where they may show up.(Note you will need a Universal Ku feed)

From my Emails & ICQ

From "SiamGlobal"

I am only getting the audio signal ie no test card on the LMI Sri Lanka channel...and even then only one of my five receivers can pick up the signal namely the Hyundai. It is very similar to Sky News on 66 degrees East in that it is audio only and one cannot enter the prog name name on to the channel list (as if you do then the signal will mysteriously vanish.) This channel is worth listerning to due to the superb music but can anyone email in to the apsattv website with their experience with this test channel and say whether they get both video and audio simultaneously . Thank you.

Morris, Bangkok

From Bill Richards

This screenshot of Thaicom 3, RR Feed channel

Hi Craig

Just a quick message to let you know our website URL has changed, could you please update our link on your page
with the new URL, thanks.

Skyvision Australia satellite TV products www.satcruiser.tv

Keep up the good work !

Regards
Jim Cotterill

General managerSkyvision Australia

From the Dish

PAS 2 169E 3798 V "The Fox mux" left again, now only on 3992 V.

Optus B1 12456 V "TVNZ Test" Changed Sr back to 22493, no PIDS? or encrypted now? can anyone else load this one now?

Intelsat 902 62E Intelsat 902 has reached 62 East, and all Ku capacity has switched from Intelsat 602 to Intelsat 902, almost same line-up as before but much stronger signals.

NEWS

Sorry nothing for today

4/10/01

A new beta of DVB2000 has been released get it from the usual site. (Dvb 2000 2.05 beta 6)

TVNZz on B1 12456 V seems to be testing again other than the usual test card. The Sr has changed to 14463 and it is now running TV1. No PAT is being transmitted. The pids are Vpid 512, Apid 650, Sid 1 the signal seems quite stronger here as well, now stronger than Sky.

Its NZ partner Telstra has saved the pay TV company - for the time being.

Telstra may have rescued Austar from death row this week but the unprofitable regional pay TV company's future is still far from assured.

With its piggy bank empty, Austar needed another $150 million to meet its funding obligations for Telstra Saturn, its New Zealand pay TV joint venture with Telstra. Given that equity markets have only soured since parent UnitedGlobalCom was forced to take up the shortfall from Austar's $201 million rights issue in May, Austar didn't like its chances.

Which left Telstra little alternative but to assume full financial responsibility for the $NZ1.2 billion ($983 million) Kiwi broadband roll-out, particularly if it were to pursue the widely speculated game-plan of out-foxing Telecom New Zealand on its home ground.

Having rid itself of the Telstra Saturn burden, Austar has suddenly become a self-funding business. By Austar's own reckoning, the $253 million that was left in the bank at the end of June should now see the company through until it turns cash flow positive in 2004.

After bottoming out at 15c, Austar shares doubled in value this week on renewed confidence in the company's future.

But Austar still has a lot of work to do in its home market before the wolves completely retreat from the door. Despite boasting a pay TV monopoly in the bush, Austar's Australian business is floundering after attempting to diversify beyond its core business.

Not only is Austar feeling the pain of programming contracts written in US dollars but the looming recession threatens to bring pay TV subscriber growth, already slowing, to a standstill, if not into reverse. Not good news for a company facing a loss of $390 million this year.

Most pressing of all is refinancing its $400 million bank loan. If it misses the December 31 deadline, Austar could be forced to repay the amount in full in early 2002.

Many believe Austar has a limited life span in its current form. While 81 per cent struggling US shareholder UGC is unlikely to let Austar go under, it would have trouble tipping more money into the company.

Because Foxtel relies on selling programming to Austar to meet the minimum subscriber numbers it has guaranteed the Hollywood studios, the pay TV company owned by Telstra, News Ltd and PBL cannot afford to let Austar completely disappear. Foxtel and Austar also jointly own the XYZ content company.

A neat solution would be a Foxtel takeover of Austar, merging the Foxtel metropolitan service with Austar's regional business. Not only would this spawn a national pay TV operation but it would fit nicely with Rupert Murdoch's ambition of creating a global satellite company.

But the squabbling Foxtel shareholder triumvirate have their internal ructions to sort out before they can seriously look at a corporate play.

And even if new chairman Sam Chisholm manages to persuade the partners to agree on a strategy involving Austar, competition watchdog Allan Fels is unlikely to agree to a merger that would give Foxtel more than three-quarters of Australian pay TV viewers.

Instead, Foxtel would favour the Qantas option - stand by while Austar implodes, then move in and grab the assets (stitching up the Australian pay TV market in the process) at a bargain basement price.

Foxtel has already employed this strategy to its advantage in the past. When pay TV company Australis collapsed in late 1997 (after the ACCC blocked a merger with Foxtel), Foxtel stepped in and picked up its set-top boxes and programming contracts on the cheap.

The dark horse in all of this is Optus, the other half of the Australian metro city pay TV duopoly.

After dominating the market in its first year of operation, Optus ceded that position to rival Foxtel and has gradually faded into the pay TV background.

Rather than burn through a pile of cash promoting a stand-alone pay TV service, Optus has chosen instead to make money by bundling pay TV with telephony services.

Following SingTel's $14 billion takeover of Optus, the official line is that the future of the consumer and multimedia division - which incorporates the pay TV business - is under review. But given that the division finally turned EBITDA positive in the March quarter, industry pundits doubt that SingTel will walk away from pay TV now.

As Optus already operates a satellite joint venture with Austar in the bush, it's not a big leap to foresee a broader alliance between the two companies. But SingTel is not about to reach for the cheque book to bring Austar (and all its problems) into the fold and the prospect of Austar suddenly coming up with the cash to take on the Optus pay TV business is somewhat remote.

Which leaves Austar battling to turn its pay TV business around before it is forced to find another Telstra-esque white knight.

SCC orders Superbird 6 from BSS

From [sat-index] 03 Oct 2001

Boeing Satellite Systems signed a contract with Space
Communications Corporation (SCC) of Tokyo for a Boeing 601
communications satellite, designated Superbird 6, which is
scheduled to launch in the third quarter of 2003. SCC will
select the launch vehicle at a later date.

Superbird 6, slated for an orbital slot at 158 degrees East,
will provide business telecommunication services using a Japan
beam and a steerable beam. The spacecraft has a payload of 23
active Ku-band transponders and four Ka-band transponders.

Space Communications Corporation (SCC), a Japanese satellite
communications service company, was established in 1985 by
Mitsubishi Corporation (MC), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
(MELCO), and other Mitsubishi Group Companies. SCC operates four
communications satellites named Superbird A, B2, C, and D.

Bitstream, NDS sign deal for first satellite TV platform in Korea

From http://www.indiantelevision.com/headlines/y2k1/oct/oct9.htm

Bitstream Inc. and NDS Group plc have have entered into a long-term, large volume contract to license Bitstream's Korean stroke-based font for use in NDS' digital broadcasting systems deployed by SkyLife in Korea.

SkyLife is the first and exclusive satellite broadcaster in Korea, and hopes to reach 3 million pay-TV subscribers by 2005.

The first set-top box vendors have been selected by SkyLife, and integration of Bitstream fonts and NDS middleware and conditional access systems is ongoing. Humax Co. Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Hyundai Digital Technology Co. Ltd. are all committed to delivery of digital set-top boxes to SkyLife by the end of the year, a joint release says.

"We are excited to expand our long-term relationship with NDS and to offer a high-quality Korean font to SkyLife," said Anna Chagnon, President of Bitstream yesterday. "This is a tremendous opportunity for Bitstream. With its small footprint and fast rendering speed, including the fastest TrueType rasterizer on the market, Font Fusion and stroke-based fonts are ideal for digital broadcasting systems, where quality text rendering on screen is of critical importance. We are excited by SkyLife's endorsement of our stroke-based font as the standard for digital satellite broadcasting in Korea."

Sue Taylor, Vice President and General Manager, NDS Asia Pacific, said, "The combined strengths of Bitstream and NDS are a proven solution. In China, we have shown that our combined solution reduces the hardware requirements of the set-top box, consequently reducing the overall cost of the set-top box."

NDS will supply the Open VideoGuard conditional access system, NDS Core middleware, StreamServer for the management control of the digital headend, and provide consultancy for set-top box integration.

NDS and SkyLife will work with Korean set-top box manufacturers to incorporate Bitstream's Korean stroke-based font into their solutions. NDS licensed Font Fusion from Bitstream to use as NDS' font rendering technology for rendering high-quality Korean characters on the fly.

Bitstream's stroke-based fonts are extremely compact, high-quality Asian fonts for embedded systems. These fonts enable developers to keep storage and memory requirements to a minimum. For example, a Korean font in this format includes over 17,000 characters in less than 400 KB. Developers do not have to dedicate a large amount of ROM space to store a stroke-based font, nor do they have to use a lot of memory to display it.

Many developers, including ANT, Liberate, NDS, Quadriga, and Samsung, are using Bitstream's font technology to build cable, satellite, and home entertainment systems for digital television.

Font Fusion provides developers with full font fidelity and high-quality typographic output at any resolution on any device, while maintaining the integrity of the original character shapes. Font Fusion is small and fast. Most developers can compile the source code in 32-105 KB, depending on options. It generates more than 16,000 characters per second, using the Arial font at 25 lines per em on a 233MHz Pentium(r) II processor, cache turned off.

Font Fusion performs well in memory- and performance-constrained environments. For example, a complete traditional Chinese TrueType font with over 13,000 characters can occupy as much as 8MB. With Font Fusion, the same characters occupy less than 0.5MB, representing considerable savings in memory and disk space costs.

India's next generation communication satellite Insat-3C, which was originally scheduled to be launched in September, will not be placed in orbit before January at the earliest. And that is dependent on it's getting space aboard Arianespace's Ariane 5 rocket.

The failure of Ariane 5's flight 142 to reach a proper orbit on July 12 led to the indefinite suspension of further Ariane 5 flights as a seven-member independent inquiry board went into what went wrong. The panel, which submitted its report to Arianespace on 1 August, notified all its customers, including the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which had launched the Insat series on French Ariane rockets.

The summary of the findings state that the malfunction was due to a combustion instability at the 'EPS' upper stage ignition due to the abnormally high pressure gradient in the combustion chamber.

The return-to-flight program for the Ariane 5 is moving ahead at present with more than 60 ignition tests of the Aestus upper stage engine having been performed on a test rig in Germany. The data will be used in determining the new ignition sequence.

Modifications of the Aestus engine test rig will be made to validate flight conditions during the ground-based static firings. To allow these modifications to be carried out, and to provide time for the upper stage's qualification, the Ariane 5's next flight is now targeted for January 2002, Arianespace CEO Jean-Marie Luton has said.

Arianespace at present has a backlog of 50 payloads to be launched, which include 41 satellites and nine ATV missions for the international Space station. This is for both its Ariane 4 and 5 series.

The 1,170 kg Insat-3C will provide fixed satellite services (FSS) in the normal and extended C-bands, as also broadcast satellite services and mobile satellite services in the S-band.

Insat-3C will replace India’s current workhorse, Insat-2C, whose capacity will be transferred to the new bird. Insat-2C is expected to reach the end of its seven-year life span in another six months.

The launch of Insat-3C will be the first phase of ISRO’s efforts to add more than 50 transponders to its capacity, ISRO chairman K Kasturirangan had told a conference of V-SAT service providers some months ago.

The demand for V-SATS is expected to increase from the 14,000 currently in operation to 20,000 in the next couple of years with broadband V-SATs coming in with new technology.

Insat-3C has cost ISRO $40 million. In addition, it is paying $77 million to Arianespace as launch costs.

3/10/01

The new chatroom worked great last night!! fast to load, better layout, better private mode. Better all round. I hope it stays working. I am still playing with my dish settings on Asiasat 2 managed to make my reception much worse once the correct elevation was used, 42 Degrees. I can't do much untill I get unit to move the actuator. I seemed to be just below the satellite pushing up on the bottom of the dish was getting the picture coming up (worldnet analog) Did something stuffed it up even more so have left it as it is.

From my Emails & ICQ

This from a dealer that wishes to remain "ANON"

Hello Craig,

I spoke by phone with Alpha Skai (Greece) yesterday, Asking about "what is going to happen to your signal, now that a pay-tv company in Australia has taken away Antenna and Mega from the Greek community"?

Their answer from the master control room "We have been given instructions as part of the deal that we have entered into with the pay-tv company, (I guess he means Tarbs), to NOT GIVE ANY INFORMATION TO ANYONE WHO CALLS US UNTIL AFTER THE 15th OF OCTOBER".

Well Craig, reading between the lines, (I don't think you have to be a college proffessor to work this one out), that Alpha will be going about the 15th, leaving us with NO Greek channels at all.

I have sent many emails to Greece recently, with only one reply from Mega Cosmos.
"Mega Cosmos is not a free channel, and we advise you to contact Tarbs"

(Funny, I though Mega was free on Thaicom 3 for the past 18 months - I must have been watching a pirate tv station instead. I will get my eye-sight checked asap)

I believe that Antenna have also been read 'the riot act' also about not to talk to anyone in Australia about the take over.

I would like to publicy like to thank all pay-tv operators in Australia apart from Tarbs, for their kindness and gererosity, for running Greek channels on their platforms, without needing to scramble the C band signals to deprive people of some free international tv channels.

Craigs comment, might be a good time to start informing customers. Perhaps some Greek Organization may like to start up a nationwide petition?

Hi how are you going , on tuesdays dish report you had under pas-2 'ocassional feeds' 3865 V 19530. i chucked this on to my coship reciever and I got an intensity signal which means the channel is working, but whats funny is that halfway through its program search it cut out.

I have 2 questions:

1) can you give me the A-pids and V-pids? (as i wasnt able to get them)

2) i would like to ask you if anyone who has a pas2 and a NOKIA to put it in their nokia and to show me what NOKIA response is in writing,

If you dont mind would it be possible to put it on your website.

thankyou Abdul

Craigs comment, The feed came off Lyngsat someone with Nokia may be able to give details

Sky Television has announced the launch of New Zealand’s first interactive television service.

The service, which goes to air this month, includes a weather channel, a games channel, pay-per-view movies and sports statistics. A television-based email service will be available in about three months.

European games developer Ludi TV is supplying the games which include arcade, sports, adventure and card games. Sky will offer six games to begin with, but will add more games to the service each month.

Sports fans will have access in depth analysis of games. Viewers will be able to bring up live statistics throughout games. They will also be able to see historical statistics and table-rankings for teams. Rugby, rugby league and soccer will be the first sports to benefit from these applications; but other sports will follow.

Interactive weather will give subscribers up-to-date weather information when they want it. The service will include satellite imagery, isobaric maps, rain radar, urban forecasts, marine forecasts and special weather bulletins.

Services will become available this month to subscribers who already have the digital sky service. The sky digital decoder will be automatically upgraded through the Sky satellite, however those wanting to use the email service will have to buy a keyboard from Sky.

Sky plans to add more applications to its interactive service over the next couple of years.

Sky has about 270,000 digital subscribers and 160,000 UHF subscribers. UHF subscribers will have to change to digital if they want the interactive services.

Saturn buy puts heat on Telstra

From http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/03/biztech/biztech16.html

Telstra is under pressure to transform Telstra Saturn into a profitable business now that it has assumed total responsibility for funding the New Zealand pay TV operation.

On Monday, Telstra agreed with its Telstra Saturn joint venture partner Austar to take on the full cost of rolling out a broadband cable network in New Zealand. Telstra and Austar originally agreed to jointly invest $NZ1.2 billion ($980 million) in Telstra Saturn over five years. From June 2004, Telstra has the option to buy out cash-strapped Austar's 50 per cent stake in the venture.

Telstra Saturn is not expected to break even until 2005. It lost $85 million in the June half.

Telstra's investment track record has been patchy to date. It earned just a 7 per cent return on its investments in 2001, compared to the 30 per cent return generated by its Australian operations.

"The market is naturally concerned by Telstra's record in associated investments," said one analyst.

Telstra lost a total of $128 million on joint ventures, including Telstra Saturn and Foxtel in 2001. It lost $183 million more on associated companies such as Solution 6. As part of its 2001 accounts, Telstra slashed the value of its $3 billion investment in its Hong Kong mobile joint venture with Pacific Century CyberWorks by $1 billion.

"Given the early stage of Telstra Saturn's development combined with Optus's mixed success in its cable roll out, the market is going to be sceptical," said the analyst. Optus's consumer and multimedia division, under which its cable business falls, turned EBITDA positive only in the March quarter.

Telstra Saturn is viewed as Telstra's way of putting pressure on competitor Telecom New Zealand in its home market. "They can afford to burn through a billion dollars if in the process it totally screws a competitor - it's a five-year plan," said one market participant.

However, analysts believe Telstra needs to buy phone company Clear Communications, merge it with Telstra Saturn and focus on the corporate market if it is to become a serious challenger to Telecom in New Zealand. "Telstra Saturn combined with Clear would be a fairly potent weapon against Telecom New Zealand. They could put the heat on them in the business market," said the analyst.

The combined management buy-out and private equity sale of Clear favoured by UK parent British Telecom is looking increasingly troubled. Not only have earnings forecasts been downgraded, but Clear is now embroiled in a stoush with Telecom NZ over interconnection prices. In this context, analysts believe Telstra could acquire Clear for significantly less than the mooted $NZ450 million asking price.

Telstra shares rose 4c to $5.30 yesterday.

Orbital Sciences to build another B-SAT TV satellite

From http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0110/02bsat2c/

Japanese communications satellite operator B-SAT has contracted Orbital Sciences Corp. to build and launch another direct-to-home TV broadcasting satellite to replace the one lost in the failed launch of an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket in July.

The Ariane 5's upper stage suffered from "combustion instability" during its ignition, causing an improper mixture of oxidizer and fuel. In turn, that resulted in a reduced thrust level and an early shut down of the stage's engine, stranding BSAT-2b and the European Artemis satellite in uselessly low orbits.

BSAT-2b didn't have enough onboard fuel to boost itself into the correct orbit, leading officials to declare the satellite a loss.

The other BSAT-2 craft -- BSAT-2a -- was successfully placed into orbit by an earlier Ariane 5 launch in March. Since then, the craft has been put into commission and is currently operating as expected.

The newly ordered satellite will be called BSAT-2c and will be virtually identical to BSAT-2b, which was supposed to serve as a backup to BSAT-2a. This replacement bird will fill that role and will likely be located along with BSAT-2a in geostationary orbit at 110 degrees East, 22,300 miles above the island of Borneo.

The launch of BSAT-2c is scheduled for the first quarter of 2003, but a launch system has not yet been announced. Financial details of the deal were also not disclosed.

The BSAT-2 spacecraft provide relay capabilities for Japanese direct-to-home digital television programming at much higher resolutions and in a wider-screen format than the older analog systems.

Like the other members of the Japanese BSAT-2 fleet, BSAT-2c will be based on Orbital Sciences' "STAR" platform design. Weighing in at around 3,000 pounds, these satellite designs provide a less expensive alternative to the traditional larger communications craft.

"The BSAT-2 program highlights our unique GEO (Geostationary Orbit) satellite capabilities," Dr. Ali Atia, leader of the communications satellite sector of Orbital Sciences, said. "We look forward to working with B-SAT once again to deliver a system that provides television service in an affordable, reliable manner."

This contract for Orbital Sciences comes just over a week after an Orbital Sciences Taurus rocket and two Orbital-built satellites were lost during a launch failure of the Taurus rocket.

B4U Movies to be encrypted from Nov

From http://www.business-standard.com/ice/news4.asp?menu=1

B4U Entertainment Channel has been re-launched as B4U Movies. The channel will be encrypted by November and will go in pay mode by January 2002.

Debashis Dey, chief distribution officer of B4U Television Network, said: “On the distribution front, we intend to encrypt B4U Movies channel sometime in November. We will be using Smart-card from Nagravision as the encryption module with IRD’s from Eurostar. We feel that two months will be a reasonably good period for viewers to sample the channel. However, the B4U Music channel will remain free-to air.”

?The average rate per subscriber per month is proposed at Rs 6.50. We also feel that our channel will be a refreshing change, as it is not clustered by a bouquet of unwanted content, which cable operators are currently forced to subscribe to, ” he added.

At present, B4U has four fully-equipped regional office in each of the metros to handle distribution.

The network also has a large team of “Channel Ambassadors” across the country. These ambassadors have been with B4U since the very beginning and a majority of them will be distributors for the channels.

?However, we also invite applications for distributorship from interested business houses provided they are attached with this industry in some form or the other," said Dey.

B4U intends to subsidise the price of the boxes and distribute them against refundable deposits of around Rs 8000 per box. B4U has a vast library of both current hits and blockbusters from the Bollywood industry besides old classics.

B4U Movies will telecast three hits per week - a Friday premiere, a Saturday blockbuster and a Sunday classic. In addition, it will telecast one more film under the banner of 'Movie Of The Month' will be screened," said Dey.

The programmes will also include a host of Bollywood-based shows, highlighting film shooting, the studios and the classic films attached with them, Bollywood gossip, behind the scenes, raw cuts, countdowns, market, flops, hits, comedies, super stars, and many more unique programmes in innovative formats.

2/10/01

Livechat in the Chatroom tonight 8.30 Syd time and 9.15pm NZ onwards.We have a new chatroom the look of it is a bit different to the old one but uses the same software it should load very quickly. Some special instructions below in case your browser keeps trying to load the older version of the page. You can get me on ICQ or through the mailing list if you have trouble. Lots of news in the news section today.

http://www.apsattv.com/chat.html is the link same as on the left of the page. At the top of the usual chat page it will say up the top in Green text Parachatfree.comIf it dosn't then you are loading the older version of the page, clear your temp internet files folder out. Then go back to the chat page and hold down Ctrl and hit refresh to reload the page. I hope there are no silly limits as to how many people can use the room. We just have to try it out. You will see you have loaded the right room as the layout is different with people in the room being shown on the left hand side.

Asiasat 2 100.5E 3951 H New PIDs for Macau Five Star Pop Channel Vpid 452 Apid 453.
Asiasat 2 100.5E 4029 H "Linx 1" Sr 6110, Fec 3/4 ( I found this feed last night just playing with the Nokia, not listed at Lyngsat not sure what it was as it just finished when I flicked back to it was around 4 a.m NZ)

Regional pay TV company Austar United Communications today announced it has reached agreement with Telstra relating to a restructure of a shareholders agreement for their joint venture known as TelstraSaturn.

TelstraSaturn is a New Zealandbased broadband communications joint venture between Austar and Telstra.

Austar said after the 2004 financial year end, it will have the right to sell its shares in TelstraSaturn to Telstra.

It said similarly, Telstra will have the right to acquire Austar's shares in TelstraSaturn.

"In both cases the sale or purchase will be governed by the terms and conditions to be set out in the shareholders' agreement," Austar said in a statement issued via the Australian Stock Exchange.

Austar said under the terms of the restructured arrangement, Telstra will, in the short term, contribute funding in the form of subordinated debt.

The remaining terms of the agreement are confidential, it said.

As a result of the restructure, Austar believes that it can execute its current business plan without the need for additional financing.

Last month shares in Austar slumped to record lows amid concerns over its debt position and cash burn rate.

In response to a share price inquiry by the Australian Stock Exchange, Austar said it was confident talks with its banks to restructure or refinance Austar Entertainment's $400 million bank facility would reach a "satisfactory conclusion".

In August, Austar chief executive John Porter revealed Austar may need to raise up to $150 million on top of the $400 million bank facility.

Analysts have said the future viability of Austar was "questionable" if the debt position wasn't refinanced.

UnitedGlobalCom has a 81.3 per cent stake in Austar.

Austar cuts new deal on NZ pay-TV

From http://www.thewest.com.au/20011002/business/tw-business-home-sto26022.html

AUSTAR has offloaded its New Zealand pay-TV funding burden on to partner Telstra as it moves to ensure the survival of its Australian pay-TV business.

Austar revealed yesterday it had restructured its agreement with Telstra over their Telstra Saturn joint venture. As of now Telstra has assumed full funding responsibility for the unprofitable NZ business.

Austar shares skyrocketed 70 per cent, or 12.5¢, to 30.5¢ as investors welcomed the news that the regional pay-TV service would now be fully funded.

No longer liable for the New Zealand capital expenditure, Austar said the $253 million cash it had on hand at the end of June would be sufficient to fund its Australian business until it breaks even in 2004.

Austar and Telstra originally agreed to together spend more than $NZ1 billion rolling out a broadband cable network in New Zealand over five years.

In the short term Telstra will now fund the entire Telstra Saturn project through subordinated debt. It may look to bring in another equity partner at a later date.

From June 2004 Austar will have the right to sell its 50 per cent stake in Telstra Saturn to Telstra, which will also have the right to buy Austar out. The rest of the terms of the agreement are confidential.

Austar has been under pressure to disentangle itself from Telstra Saturn, which has been a substantial drain on the company's meagre cash reserves.

Trading at $9.65 at the peak of the tech boom, Austar shares hit a record low of 15¢ last week.

Austar has spent $140 million in New Zealand during the past four years.

In August, Austar chief executive John Porter revealed it needed to raise up to $150 million before June next year to ensure it met its Telstra Saturn funding commitments. Telstra Saturn is not expected to break even until 2005. It lost $65 million in the June half.

"This secures the basis of our whole business going forward," said Austar spokesman Bruce Meagher. "We still think Telstra Saturn is going to be a very profitable business and we still have a very large stake in that. Unfortunately, sometimes you've got to make some tough choices."

A Telstra spokeswoman refused to comment on why the telco had agreed to assume the full financial responsibility for Telstra Saturn.

Now that it has extricated itself from NZ commitments, Austar must renegotiate its $400 million bank loan before the year is out.

If it is unsuccessful, Austar will be forced to repay the amount in full in the first quarter of next year.

Having eliminated its biggest capital expenditure burden, Austar's financial position should start to improve from 2002. It is facing a loss of $390 million this year as US dollar programming costs, slowing subscriber growth and capital expenditure take their toll.

Austar lost $196 million in the June half, 62 per cent more than the $120 million loss booked a year ago.

Deal sees shares in Austar skyrocket

From http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,2968350%255E462,00.html

SHARES in troubled pay television group Austar United Communications leapt nearly 70 per cent yesterday after Telstra agreed to assume the group's funding commitment to their TelstraSaturn joint venture in New Zealand.

The deal will relieve Austar of the necessity to raise an extra $150 million in capital, at a time when it is struggling to make ends meet, and has given it the option to sell out of the venture in 2004.

Yesterday Austar shares, which have been going downhill since March last year, and hit a record low of 15c last week, closed at 30.5c, up 12.5c or 69.44 per cent.

"After the 2004 financial year end Austar will have the right to sell its shares in TelstraSaturn to Telstra. Similarly Telstra will have the right to acquire Austar's shares in TelstraSaturn," Austar said in a statement yesterday.

Austar spokesman Bruce Meagher said later that under the restructured joint venture agreement Telstra would pay the balance of Austar's share of capital contributions for this year  a figure believed to be about $60 million.

He said Austar no longer had any liability to contribute funds to the joint venture.

"We do not have to contribute more money," he said.

Austar had committed to contribute $150 million in equity over five years to the roll-out of TelstraSaturn's cable network in New Zealand.

The joint venture has been a millstone around Austar's neck.

The venture suffered losses of $65.4 million in the first half of this year, when Austar incurred a 62 per cent higher loss of $196 million.

Austar is currently struggling to renegotiate a $400 million debt facility which falls due by the end of the year and the need to raise a further $150 million had weighed heavily on analysts' evaluations of its prospects of survival.

However, the group said yesterday it now "believes it can execute its current business plan without the need for additional financing".

Mr Meagher said negotiations were continuing with banks on rolling over the $400 million debt.

He said the company believed "this resolution of the further financing issue would give the banks a level of comfort".

Austar and Telstra started the TelstraSaturn joint venture in 2000, with the stated goal of spending $800 million over five years to build a cable network throughout New Zealand.

A Telstra spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the arrangement was confidential.

Last year Telstra lost $85 million on the joint venture.

Mr Meagher said: "Essentially you can say we have had a funding gap of $150 million, and between this (agreement with Telstra) and some other cost-saving measures that we've put in place within the Australian business, we now believe we don't require those additional funds.

". . . In terms of executing our business plan we don't need to go and raise additional cash to get the Austar group  the Australian and New Zealand parts  to break even."

Under the new joint venture terms, Telstra will in the short term contribute funding to TelstraSaturn in the form of subordinated debt.

PAS-7 loses 25 percent of power

From http://sat-index.com

PAS-7 recently experienced a sudden reduction of approximately 25 percent of its power capacity because of what PanAmSat called a technical difficulty with one of the spacecraft’s solar arrays. The incident reportedly took place on 6 September when the spacecraft came out of eclipse. Services for all existing customers on the satellite have not been affected.

PanAmSat said it maintains a policy of insurance on this satellite in the approximate amount of US$250 million. The company has made the preliminary determination that this event will constitute a Total Constructive Loss under the policy, which occurs for insurance purposes when 20 percent or more of the capacity on the satellite is lost.

"Even with the power degradation on PAS-7, the satellite has more than enough power capacity remaining to serve all customers with a safe margin to spare for their services," said Robert Bednarek, PanAmSat's executive vice president and chief technology officer. "We ... fully expect the satellite to continue to meet our customer needs for the foreseeable future."

He added that PanAmSat was working with the satellite manufacturer, Space Systems/Loral, to determine the long-term implications on the satellite. Loral earlier this year had reported that eleven FS 1300 satellites in orbit could be affected by a short circuit in their solar-cell arrays. So far, none of the satellites had suffered more than a slight degradation of solar power.

PAS-7, an FS 1300 model satellite, was launched in September 1998 and carries 14 C-band transponders and 30 Ku-band transponders.

Insat 3C Launch Faces Further Delay

From satnewsasia.com

India’s Insat 3C communication satellite is now scheduled for launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket possibly in January 2002, instead of late November this year.

This possibility arose after Arianespace released an action plan indicating that the Ariane 5's next flight is now set for January 2002.

Insat 3C, designated as Flight 143, was to have been launched in August on an Ariane 5. The launch was postponed after Ariane’s Flight 142 last July failed to deliver its two-satellite payload into proper orbit due to an upper stage malfunction. The design of Ariane 5’s upper stage was modified following the incident.

Arianespace said more than 60 ignition tests of the Aestus upper stage engine have been performed on a test rig in Germany since after the launch failure. Modeling of phenomena that occurs during the critical ignition phase also has been carried out. This data, Arianespace said, will be used in determining the new, “softer” ignition sequence which will provide sufficient margins for all possible ignition modes.

"Ignition tests to date have been performed in vacuum conditions, using a flight model Aestus engine. Modifications of the engine test rig will be made to add “buffer” tanks, allowing creation of a propellant line circuit similar to the configuration on the Ariane 5’s upper stage. The modified test bench will be used for a series of qualification tests for the new ignition sequence," Arianespace said.

To allow these modifications to be carried out, and to provide time for the qualification tests, the Ariane 5's next flight, Arianespace said, is now targeted for January 2002.

With a weight of 1,170 kg, Insat 3C will provide fixed satellite services (FSS) in the normal and extended C-bands, and broadcast satellite services and mobile satellite services in the S-band.

Insat 3C will carry 36 transponders for VSAT (very small aperture terminals) and broadcast services throughout India. Of the transponders, 24 are in normal C-band and 12 in extended C-band.

Insat 3C will replace India's current workhorse, Insat 2C, whose capacity will be transferred to the new satellite. Insat 2C is expected to reach the end of its seven-year useful life in March 2002.

Insat 3C cost India some US$40 million to develop. An additional US$77 million will be paid to Arianespace as launch cost.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s equivalent of NASA, plans to launch a follow-on satellite, Insat 3A, in early 2002.

ISRO plans to build more satellites under its upcoming Insat 4 series. These new generation birds will carry Ku-band transponders in anticipation of a surge in demand for KU-band.

There are some 14,000 VSATs operating in India, a number projected to rise to 25,000 in 10 years. Meeting this demand will require 50 transponders, according to ISRO.

China Opens to Western Media, Foreign Telecom Players

From satnewsasia.com

In preparation to its accession to the World Trade Organization this month, China is expected to open its markets and liberalize its trade rules by gradually eliminating tariffs on semiconductors, telecommunications and other key products.

It has taken key initial steps with last month’s announcement that American media giant AOL Time Warner Inc. and Australia’s News Corp are close in getting permission to broadcast in China’s 90 million cable subscribers, the largest cable market in the world.

China said both companies would be allowed to make cable broadcasts in limited parts of Guangdong in exchange for broadcasting China’s state-run China Central Television (CCTV) channel in the United States. Guangdong, a populous wealthy province near Hong Kong, often serves as a laboratory as China experiments with capitalism.

Considering the tensions between China and the U.S., analysts believe bringing CCTV to the U.S. would be a tough regulatory and political challenge. Even bigger challenge is how to fully penetrate China's huge but heavily regulated TV market, believed capable of generating potential advertising revenues of some US$2.5 billion annually.

Many analysts, however, are more cautious and believe it could take years before foreign broadcasters can turn China into a significant market.

Star Group, a subsidiary of News Corp, said its talks with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) of China and China International Television Corporation (CITV) concerning landing rights in Guangdong were advancing smoothly. Star wants broadcasting rights in southern China's booming Guangdong province because Guangdong’s TV ad market is estimated at US$200 to 400 million.

News Corp already has substantial operations in China. Star chairman and CEO James Murdoch said his company is hopeful that it can reach a positive conclusion soon and launch a new service that complements its existing China operations.

News Corp is well established in China. In 2000, it invested US$60 million in broadband telecoms carrier China Netcom, which is backed by the son of President Jiang Zemin.

AOL Time Warner is looking for increased access to its CETV (China Entertainment Television) in China. It described its talks with Beijing as “constructive”. CETV is a 24-hour Mandarin language channel bought by AOL Time Warner in 2000. It can be viewed by anyone licensed to receive foreign broadcast signals within the footprint of its satellite.

CETV, however, is not among 20 plus channels permitted to be shown in luxury hotels and other special venues, a group that includes its sister channel CNN, and Star TV.

Despite the progress made by AOL Time Warner and News Corp, analysts warn that considerable financial benefits for foreign broadcasters in China are years away considering the country’s tightly regulated telecoms and broadcasting market.

Foreign TV rules

Until last month’s announcement of China’s entry into the WTO, China still does not allow any foreign ownership of telecom service providers. In fact, present realities in the telecoms and Internet industries are seemingly in defiance of present laws. Media and Internet companies in China operate in an ill-defined regulatory environment and if Beijing gets displeased and suddenly enforces its laws, much of their business could be wiped out.

China's rules governing foreign TV are also complicated and selectively enforced. Current PRC laws still prohibit Chinese individuals from receiving foreign television programs. Many cable systems “illegally” carry the signals of foreign broadcasters such as Hong Kong's TVB.

Phoenix Satellite Television, 45 percent owned by News Corp., has a license to operate in China. The company's 45 million mainland households receive its broadcasts, mostly through local cable and TV stations that download its free satellite signal. Phoenix is a company "based" in the Cayman Islands and 39 percent owned by Star TV, a unit of Australia's News Corp.

Phoenix currently broadcasts Chinese language programs into China from Hong Kong. It is enjoying rising revenue and now plans to build a 24-hour news channel called InfoNews, patterned after CNN.

Phoenix is now listed on the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) of the Hong Kong stock exchange since June 30 last year. Still, Phoenix and other Internet companies’ biggest challenge while operating in China is how to balance between what appeals to its viewers without displeasing government authorities.

China joins WTO

But China’s joining of TWO middle of September should “force” it to change its many laws. In telecommunications, foreign owned companies will be allowed to establish joint ventures with Chinese companies with fewer ownership restrictions. All geographic restrictions in services will be lifted five years after China's accession to the WTO.

Based on WTO rules, China will also remove tariffs on semiconductors, computers and software. Its 6-10 percent tariffs on integrated circuits will be eliminated in 2002, while tariffs on semiconductor equipment and materials will be done away with by 2005.

American business groups were delighted by China’s WTO membership. The opening of China’s vast markets is expected to create significant new opportunities for American exports and investments.

China was to have joined the WTO during the first quarter but delayed its membership to tackle thorny issues such as liberalization. As a member of the WTO, China is expected to open its markets and liberalize its trade rules by gradually eliminating tariffs on semiconductors, telecommunications and other key products.

Increase in satellite use

In telecoms, the first beneficiary to new rules may be the satellite industry. Already, China China intends to increase its use of communications satellites to provide better telecom services to its poor interior provinces.

China's satellite companies were previously protected from foreign competition by government restrictions on investment. These restrictions, however, will gradually be lifted with China’s membership in the WTO.

Under the present system, China’s satellite industry is effectively a government monopoly and reforms are desperately needed.

Qi Caiyun, general manager of privately-owned China Eastern Satellite Network Corporation said that because of this government monopoly, China’s satellite market is still lagging behind that of Europe and America.

Compared with foreign satellite companies, Chinese operators are small, with just a few satellites each, and have high capital costs. They do, however, have a cost advantage: China's transponder costs are typically 60-70 percent of average world prices.

This welcome move will expand telecom services in China's west, which is much poorer than its southern and eastern coast. The focus on western China is part of a huge government push to increase public and private investment in the region.

Vice-Minister Lou Qinjian of the Ministry of Information Industry has said the government would make full use of satellite communications and construct and improve the satellite communications network. He also said China will develop satellite phones to reduce access costs in rural areas.

Government's plans for the satellite industry also include developing new businesses such as direct-to-home satellite broadcasting.

China plans to put in place a common platform for satellite communications that will develop high-capacity DTH satellites and related applications.

Despite China’s push for satellite telecommunications, both Chinese and foreign businessmen agree that only widespread liberalization will make this industry profitable.

The market for satellite-based multimedia in Asia is estimated to grow to around US$1 billion by 2004, according to estimations by Jitong. A large portion of the figure would be generated within China, but only if there are enough Chinese providers Ñ foreign companies are not allowed to provide basic telecoms services.

Satellites would also be able to back up and supplement terrestrial narrowband communications, i.e. telephone lines. For certain remote areas in China, this would even be cheaper than to built ground-based networks.

Broadband Internet services, which could provide such services as remote education, online shopping, and teleconferencing, may become a new revenue source for satellite companies. Satellites will also be able to allow people to access the Internet at high speeds, according to Hao Weimin, manager of China Orient Communications Satellite Co Ltd, which operates Zhongwei 1 (Chinastar 1).

The market for satellite-based multimedia in Asia is estimated to grow to around US$1 billion by 2004, according to estimations by Jitong. A large portion of the figure would be generated within China, but only if there are enough Chinese providers. Foreign companies are not allowed to provide basic telecoms services.

Satellites would also be able to back up and supplement terrestrial narrowband communications, i.e. telephone lines. For certain remote areas in China, this would even be cheaper than to built ground-based networks.

1/10/01

Sites late I have been playing around with Asiasat 2, wired up the servo motor to the analog receiver I have. Did not have much success until I found the H/V switch is pretty stuffed on it. Will look at fixxing that tommorow.

Page cleanup later

From my Emails & ICQ

From Chris Pickstock 30/9/01

NRL Final was seen and reported on the mailing list last night

B1, 12326 H, Sr 6980.

Chris

From Glenn

The test pattern on Asiasat 3 for Bloomberg Tv changed this morning and is now showing video FTA .

Telecommunications satellite owners and insurers fear a fresh series of on-orbit failures following anomalies on a PanAmSat Corp. satellite built by Space Systems/Loral and suspected defects on six large spacecraft built by Boeing Satellite Systems, according to industry officials.

Officials said PanAmSat’s PAS-7 satellite suffered a sharp, and apparently permanent, loss of power from its solar arrays earlier this month as it came out of eclipse, a period during which sunlight’s path to the panels is obstructed. The satellite, a Loral FS 1300 design, witnessed what one official said was a short circuit of its solar cells.

Loral earlier this year said 11 FS 1300 satellites in orbit could be affected by a solar-cell short circuit. But none of the satellites had suffered more than a slight degradation of solar power, and none had a loss of revenue-generating capability. No insurance claims had been filed.

That is likely to change with the PAS-7 situation, according to industry officials. The satellite is insured for $253 million.

Loral spokesman John McCarthy declined to comment on the situation.

The Boeing problem potentially affects all six of its 702 and geostationary mobile satellites in orbit, representing the company’s top-of-the-line satellite products. The 702 anomaly also relates to its solar panels, according to industry officials. But as was the case with Loral until the PAS-7 issue cropped up, it remains unclear whether the Boeing problem is serious enough to affect the overall performance of the satellites.

"It could be a big problem, or it could be a relatively small one," one industry official said. "It may take a couple of months to analyze it and determine whether the power loss will seriously degrade the satellites’ performance in orbit. Let’s not rush to an assumption here."

Boeing Satellite Systems spokesman George Torres said Boeing has isolated the problem to the reflectors attached to its satellites’ solar arrays and will remove those reflectors from all future 702 satellites.

Govt’s analogue TV switch off “ambitious”

From http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/ebusiness/story/0,2000024981,20260803,00.htm

Nearing the first anniversary of the launch of digital television in Australia, the Government’s timetable for the analogue switch-off has been described as “ambitious”.

Australia is required to achieve equivalent digital coverage to analogue eight years after commencing the service in the market, therefore the full transition would be expected by 2008.

?That’s okay in the capital city markets, but once you get to the regional markets it becomes a bit of a challenge because of the widespread coverage that’s out there,” director of technology & distribution, ABC, Chris Knowles said at a Digital Television conference in Sydney this week.

There are five capital cities operating digital TV to some degree in Australia to date.

?I think it’s important to remind ourselves digital TV is just a technology rollout and we forget how long it has taken for other technology rollouts to really reach high levels of penetration,” she said.

Stack pointed out colour television’s rollout in 1974 reached penetration levels of just 1 percent in its first year, VCRs less than 10 percent in the first six years, CD players did not reach 10 percent penetration until six years after launch, and DVDs, launched in 1997, have only reached 35 percent penetration to date.

Up until now the broadcasters have remained somewhat reticent on the take-up of digital TV, but both the ABC and the Seven Network now concede it has been disappointing.

With about 3000 - 5000 receivers out in the marketplace and no new programs, “it’s not a great incentive to come aboard,” Knowles said.

The Seven Network estimates that 6000 set top boxes have been sold in the Australian marketplace in the first nine months of digital television’s availability. “I think it would be fair to say that the take-up has been a little disappointing,” Stack said.

Both concede DTV will take an enormous amount of investment, which is not necessarily going to generate very much new revenue for a considerable time.

?So far we’ve invested nearly a billion dollars in commercial television and we expect to invest nearly a billion dollars in production facilities, transmission facilities, distribution and so on in terms of the conversion to digital television,” Seven’s Stack said. “That’s a very significant investment for an industry where, as Colin [Knowles] pointed out, digital television doesn’t drive any additional revenue at the moment.”

Stack says that the industry’s strategy moving forward is cooperation of the free-to-air broadcasters and the development of a common platform that will be internationally accepted.

Cooperation between the broadcasters has already begun, in the form of a DTV strategy group, which will work on the adoption of an open standard in Australia.

* whole range of different devices and boxes to receive digital TV in this marketplace will substantially hamper its penetration,” Stack said. “Australian free-to-air broadcasters are committed to an open international accepted platform and uniform standard of technology launched in Australia.”

According to Stack, the Australian market, which is too small to “go it alone”, should tack onto the bottom of the European market, which is adopting the DTV-MHP standard.

?In Europe, the good news is that proprietary middleware licences are very firmly migrating to MHP,” she said. However, “the overriding message is that development in Europe, one year after the launch of the MHP profile, is quite a bit slower than we had anticipated”.

In Europe, where digital TV launches have taken place, they have struggled and without exception progress has been slow, according to Stack. “After a lacklustre start not a lot of enthusiasm has been shown.”

Whilst in both the European and Australian market we’re seeing a high percentage of widescreen televisions being sold into that market, “the question you have to ask yourself is are we too far ahead of the curve in terms of the adoption of digital terrestrial television in the Australian marketplace?” Stack said.